Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: On the other side, was surgeon Roland von Marburg, an ear, nose and throat specialist, father-of-eight and supporter of the Helpers and Abortion Hurts Albury, a local group that believed most women are forced or coerced into abortion. Dr Mourik said he wasn't on Facebook, but he received a writ from Dr Marburg because of a post he was accused of backing. Dr Mourik was the spokesman for a group called Rights to Privacy Albury, which was campaigning to get an exclusion zone outside the Englehardt Street clinic to stop the staging of vigils.

The group had enlisted a student to create a Facebook page where it posted meeting times and shared articles. It also posted photos of the Helpers of God's Precious Infants when the protesters were outside the clinic. Dr Mourik's group argued that the Helpers were breaching the privacy of the women entering the clinic so it was only fair that the protesters' privacy should also be compromised. A high proportion of new defamation cases come from ordinary people posting on social media. Credit:AP On October 16, a photo of Dr von Marburg was published and, according to a Supreme Court hearing, the following words were posted: “Here is a photo of the only doctor in Albury Wodonga who would stand outside a legal, Women’s Health Clinic, violating women’s privacy! "This is, in our opinion, highly unethical ... Women have the right to access any medical service without their privacy being infringed or subject to harassment.”

Three people, according to the court, posted derogatory comments about Dr von Marburg beneath the picture. None was posted by Dr Mourik. Loading Dr von Marburg sued for defamation. But he did not pursue the people who posted the arguably more damaging comments. He sued the young administrator of the Facebook page and Dr Mourik, whom he alleged directed the student or personally edited the page. In one of his first statements of claim, Dr von Marburg said he briefly went to the clinic to speak to his wife who often spent time in peaceful vigil outside. He said he was deeply concerned about the comments, which were published in a way to undermine his medical practice and professional reputation. A University of Technology Sydney paper published this year found public figures fighting media companies were no longer the main users of defamation laws.

Researchers looked at 189 defamation cases between 2013 and 2017 and found more than half involved digital publication, including 16 that arose from Facebook posts and four from tweets. Just 21 per cent of plaintiffs were public figures. Australia’s first Twitter defamation case went to trial in 2013. A music teacher from the NSW town of Orange was awarded $105,000 because of a comment a former student made about her online. In 2016, a Queensland man had to pay his ex-wife $10,000 because he wrote on his own Facebook page that she was a "thieving, lying, money-crazed bitch". Rebel Wilson and her counsel, Dr Matthew Collins QC. Credit:Paul Jeffers Victorian bar president and defamation expert Matt Collins, QC, said the law should provide an easy remedy for online defamation, but it doesn’t. “The law provides an expensive and slow remedy. At a procedural level, defamation actions are too complicated, take too long and cost too much,” he said. He said Australia could create a threshold test similar to that in Britain, where trivial cases are refused.

“In my long experience of seeing people whose reputations have been affected in an instant ... overwhelmingly what they want is someone in authority to say what is published about them is false,” he said. District Court Judge Judith Gibson heads the defamation list in NSW. Across Australia, there have been 91 cases in a four-month period this year alone. Judge Judith Gibson. Credit:Peter Rae The legislation was so out-of-date that it could not cope, Judge Gibson said. There are no limitations on when someone can sue over an online post and the system is set up so the cases go to trial, she said. “So that means the litigation costs are enormous,” she said in a Walkley Foundation talk this year.