Google is ordered by the Australian court to pay 715,000 Australian dollars (480,500 euros) to John Barilaro, the former deputy prime minister of the state of New South Wales. That reports The Guardian. Barilaro was insulted and harassed in two YouTube videos by comedian Jordan Shanks that he became depressed and left politics.
Barilaro sued both comedian Shanks and Google, YouTube’s parent company, in 2020. In November 2021, Barilaro already reached a settlement with Shanks (whose online alias is Friendlyjordies), after Shanks apologized for the harassment and edited the videos.
However, Google refused to take the videos offline. Initially, the company even defended the videos, although it stopped doing so just before the lawsuit started.
According to Barilaro’s lawyer, his client’s political reputation was greatly damaged by the false messages in the videos, for which he demanded maximum compensation. The judge in Australia agreed on Monday, saying Barilaro was “traumatized” by the “hateful” and “racist” videos. According to the judge, Barilaro was forced “to leave public office prematurely”.
After the verdict, Barilaro said he felt “rehabilitated”. “This marks the end of a very difficult time for me and I would never have come here without the support of my family, friends and colleagues,” he said. “All I wanted was for Google to remove the videos, but it didn’t. It’s not a small undertaking to start a fight against, but I’m glad I did it.”
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