NAB force Facebook to pull Chaser post mocking their coal investments

Australian satirical comedy group The Chaser has today been warned by Facebook their page could face permanent deletion, following a complaint by NAB bank over a post which made light of the bank’s fossil fuel investments.

The post, which read “Nob Bank is proud to announce it has partnered with The Chaser for its latest greenwashing campaign” was taken down by the social network late Wednesday, with the comedy group being informed by Facebook that their post had been the subject of an intellectual property rights claim.

“We were a bit concerned to learn that copyright infringement now extends to hurting a big corporation’s feelings,” explained The Chaser’s editor Caz Smith. “So we decided we’d better warn everyone not to do this, by posting a screenshot of the offending post on Facebook. Fortunately thousands of people have already liked it, so we think we’ve got the message across.”

The dispute comes in the wake of another recent spat between Greenpeace and AGL, which saw the electricity provider take Greenpeace all the way to the high court in an attempt to halt online ads accusing the company of greenwashing. The High Court ruled against AGL on most counts in June, finding that copyright and trademark law does not protect brands from satirical criticism.

Asked if they would be avoiding further posts about NAB, the Chaser team said if anything this takedown notice has spurred them on. “Clearly we managed to ruffle some feathers at Nab, so it looks like the post worked way better than we’d ever dreamed,” explained The Chaser’s Charles Firth. “We’re not too worried about a lawsuit either. While NAB may have endless money to throw at lawyers, we have about $10 in the bank and assets totalling to about four outdated computers. So they’re more than welcome to sue us for all we’ve got. Plus the press coverage would be amazing.”

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