Taking on Facebook is no easy task. Australia has gone to battle with the tech giant this year, with the country’s highest court deciding last month that media outlets could be held liable for defamatory comments posted by readers on their respective Facebook pages. (CNN is the first major news outlet to opt out of Australia’s Facebook.)

On Wednesday, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said they’re still investigating ”the question of whether Facebook themselves are liable.”

It may sound like new terrain, but McNamee said the legal battle against Facebook is not without precedent.

“The food production and medicine industries were unsafe until the passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act of 1906,” he said. “The petrochemicals industry was a threat to public health and the environment until the passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Environmental Protect Act in the ’60s and ’70s.”