Google to pay Australian politician over defamatory YouTube videos

An Australian court on Monday ordered Google to pay a former lawmaker A$715,000 ($515,000), saying its failure to take down a YouTuber’s “relentless, racist, vilificatory, abusive and defamatory campaign” of videos drove him out of politics.

The Federal Court found the Alphabet Inc company, which owns content-sharing website YouTube, made money by broadcasting two videos attacking the then-deputy premier of New South Wales – Australia’s most populous state – that have been viewed nearly 800,000 times since being posted in late 2020.

Google has been found liable for defamation before, generally for supplying links to articles in search results, but Monday’s ruling is one of the first where the firm was deemed an active publisher – via YouTube – of content that defamed an elected official.