Google has been ordered to pay $715,000 in damages to former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro for hosting a series of racist videos by YouTube comedian Jordan Shanks.
Federal Court Justice Steven Rares found Google profited from a “deeply offensive racist campaign” by Shanks, who posts under the name FriendlyJordies.
Barilaro sued over the videos, which were published in 2020. Aside from the racist content, the videos referred to him as a corrupt operator who took bribes, attempted to blackmail other politicans, and misallocated public funds, including giving $3.3 million to a beef company.
“Mr Barilaro, like most members of the community, believed that Google portrayed itself as a good corporate citizen, but it did nothing to stop the conduct on its YouTube platforms,” Justice Rares said in his judgment.
“It is necessary to award a substantial sum in damages to compensate Mr Barilaro for the harm that Google caused to him and to vindicate his reputation.
“The ability of social media entities to publish and enable the communication of such material without constraint is a matter that the parliament ought to consider addressing.”
“Mr Barilaro was traumatised by Google’s and Mr Shanks’ campaign, and it caused him to leave public office prematurely.
“I found that Google did not apply its own policies, because it did nothing to prevent Mr Shanks‘ hate speech, and harassment [at] Mr Barilaro.
“Google did not seek to explain or prove why it left Mr Shanks‘ many racist attacks on Mr Barilaro available on YouTube.”
Barilaro suggested in March that the videos led to a situation where he was suicidal, “looking at the balcony”.
“It’s not just the video, the video is one part of the abuse that has been constant,” Barilaro said.
“I got disgusting, revolting messages … go kill yourself, you should be dead … you’re a person of shit, your daughter should be tied to a pole and raped in front of you and then we’ll kill you.
“That’s the stuff that comes off the back of these videos.”
