VB's Facebook page was littered with user-posted
comments, one of the least offensive of which was that "women
should be chained to da kitchen". This led to a complaint to
the Advertising Standards Board.
The ASB has now ruled that a company's Facebook page is an
advertisement and the company is responsible for content posted by
the public.
Similar complaints were made against VB and Smirnoff. The ASB
upheld the complaint against VB saying that companies need to
monitor and remove offensive material within a reasonable time from
their Facebook pages. The complaint against Smirnoff was
dismissed.
While the ruling doesn't have any legal effect (the ASB is
an industry self-regulator with no teeth), a recent Federal Court
decision found that a company breached an undertaking to the Court
because it didn't delete false or misleading user comments from
its Facebook wall after becoming aware of their existence.
