Landmark decisions for companies using social media

On 6 August 2012, the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) released two determinations which cast doubt on the viability of using social media for marketing purposes¹.

For the 1st time, the ASB determined that a company can be responsible under the AANA Advertiser Code of Ethics (the Code) for comments made by the public on the company's Facebook site.

There were 2 key issues considered by the ASB:

• whether the Code applies to public comments on a company's Facebook site, and
• if so, whether the particular comments breached the Code.

The ASB determined that the Code did apply to public comments on a company's Facebook site and that a number of the comments on the VB Facebook site breached the Code².