You found out from a friend. Someone you know, or used to know, has put up a post saying you’re a scammer, a thief, a drunk, a cheat, a danger to children. It’s tagged. It’s been shared into a community group. People are commenting. Your phone hasn’t stopped. And when you reported it to Facebook, you got an automated reply saying it “doesn’t go against our Community Standards”.
The platform won’t help you. But the person who wrote it is in Australia, they have a name, and Australian defamation law gives you a formal notice that gives them a formal chance to deal with it before you can sue. Most people don’t know it exists. The poster certainly doesn’t.
Your rights
- Defamation. A Facebook or Instagram post is a “publication”. If it carries an imputation about you that would lower you in the estimation of ordinary people, and you can show it caused or is likely to cause serious harm to your reputation (s 10A of the uniform Defamation Act 2005), the poster is liable. Every share and every group it’s cross-posted into is a further publication.
- The concerns notice (s 12A). In New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory (for posts published since 11 August 2025, under its own section numbers), you must serve a valid concerns notice before you can sue. It has to identify where the matter was published, set out the defamatory imputations, and particularise the serious harm. Once served, the publisher has 28 days to make an offer to make amends (s 14), which usually means taking it down and apologising. If they don’t, you can commence proceedings. Western Australia hasn’t adopted the 2021 amendments, so the pre-2021 rules apply there, but a concerns notice is still the right first step.
- Limitation period. One year from publication (s 14B Limitation Act equivalents), extendable in limited circumstances. Don’t sit on it.
- Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth). If the post is menacing, harassing or offensive and intended to cause serious harm to you as an adult, it’s adult cyber-abuse. The eSafety Commissioner can issue a removal notice to the platform and the poster, with penalties for non-compliance.
- Injurious falsehood. Where false statements are made maliciously and cause you financial loss (a sole trader, for instance), there’s a parallel claim that doesn’t depend on reputation.
The remedies in a defamation action are damages (including aggravated damages where the poster has been malicious or refused to retract), injunctions ordering removal, and costs. These cases are heard in the District or Supreme Court, not a tribunal, which is precisely why a well-drafted notice is taken seriously.
What to do right now
- Capture everything before it disappears. Screenshot the post, the URL, the date and time, the poster’s profile, every comment and every share. Save the page as a PDF. If it’s in a group, capture the group name and member count. Posters delete and re-post to reset the trail; your screenshots defeat that.
- Write out each false statement and what it means. “She stole from the club” imputes that you’re a thief. “He shouldn’t be around kids” imputes that you’re a danger to children. Number them. This is the core of a concerns notice and the part most people get wrong.
- Record the harm. Messages from people who saw it, lost work or clients, being dropped from a committee, your child being asked about it at school. Serious harm is the threshold and you need to particularise it.
- Do not reply on the post. Don’t argue in the comments, don’t message the poster to “sort it out”, don’t post your own version. Everything you write becomes evidence and it inflames the audience.
- Report to the platform and, if it’s abusive, to eSafety. Do both in parallel. Keep the report reference numbers. They go in the notice.
- Serve a concerns notice with a removal demand. Identify each publication, number the imputations, particularise the serious harm, give your address for service, flag the 28-day window and the 12-month limitation period, and demand: deletion within 7 days, no republication, a written retraction and apology, preservation of evidence, and written confirmation. Send it by email and, if you have an address, by post.
Ready to put it in writing?
Answer 3 quick questions to check you have the details your document needs, and see your next step.
1. Who is this about?
2. How much is at stake?
3. Do you have it in writing?
Your result is ready. Where should we send it?
What makes a concerns notice valid, and why most DIY letters aren’t
Since the 2021 amendments, the concerns notice is a statutory document with mandatory content. If yours doesn’t meet s 12A, the poster can ignore it and you can’t sue until you serve one that does. The usual failures:
- It doesn’t identify the publication. “Your posts about me” is not enough. Each post needs the platform, URL (or group name and date), and date.
- It doesn’t state the imputations. The notice must say what the post means, not just that it’s “lies”. A court later holds you to the imputations in the notice.
- It doesn’t particularise serious harm. “It’s damaged my reputation” is a conclusion. You need the facts: who saw it, what happened as a result.
- It’s a rant. Threats, insults and a paragraph about the poster’s own history make the notice look like a personal dispute and give the poster material to use against you.
- It doesn’t give an address for service. Required, and without it the 28-day clock arguably doesn’t run.
A valid notice does something else too: it tells the poster, in a form they can google, that they are now on a 28-day statutory clock at the end of which you can file in the District Court. That changes behaviour fast.
Who to complain to
The platform (Meta’s reporting tools; the notice itself can be attached to a legal-removal request). eSafety Commissioner for adult cyber-abuse, and for image-based abuse if photos are involved. Police if the post contains threats or is part of stalking or intimidation (a criminal matter separate from defamation). For the defamation claim itself, the District Court or Supreme Court of your state after the 28-day window closes.
Get it taken down — $49
Stop reading. Start doing. Claim Done drafts a valid Concerns Notice and Removal Demand under s 12A of the Defamation Act that identifies every post, numbers the defamatory imputations, particularises the serious harm, starts the 28-day statutory clock and demands deletion within 7 days, no republication, a written retraction and apology, and written confirmation. You proof it, then we email it to the poster.
You review every word before it’s sent.
What happens when you put it in writing — properly
Same problem. What a prepared case looks like.