Liz Fong-Jones, a longtime crusader against the site, brought the action over what she asserted in court documents was an “abusive, transphobic, defamatory” thread targeting her on the forum since August last year.
In hundreds of posts, the Kiwi Farm’s users discussed information about her work, her partner and her family. They shared “vile and baseless” allegations that she was a rapist and a liar and that she had molested and threatened subordinates, which the judge found caused serious harm to her “very good” reputation.
Messages were sent to work colleagues and posted under her employer’s online videos.
In September 2022, a picnic with supporters she hosted in Sydney’s Hyde Park was surreptitiously photographed and pictures of participants were posted on the forum too.
Run by Joshua Moon, one of Kiwi Farms’s main activities is the sustained exposure of people the site deems worthy of derision – as the site describes it, “lolcows” that are “milked” for entertainment.
The case claimed that a Brisbane-based company, Flow Chemical, and its sole director, Vincent Zhen, were “instrumental” to its publication and for keeping it accessible, even though they were not the authors of the defamatory Kiwi Farms thread.
Because the matter was undefended, an interlocutory judgment was made against Flow Chemical and Zhen in July and Fong-Jones was awarded damages of $445,000 plus costs this week.
