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from the you-can-do-anything,-but-you-can't-do-that dept.
Ars Technica reports that the European Court of Humans Rights has ruled Estonian news site Delfi is liable for hate speech posted in comments by users:
As the digital rights organisation Access notes, this goes against the European Union's e-commerce directive, which "guarantees liability protection for intermediaries that implement notice-and-takedown mechanisms on third-party comments." As such, Peter Micek, Senior Policy Counsel at Access, says the ECHR judgment has "dramatically shifted the internet away from the free expression and privacy protections that created the internet as we know it."
A post from the Media Legal Defence Initiative summarises the reasons why the court came to this unexpected decision. The ECHR cited "the 'extreme' nature of the comments which the court considered to amount to hate speech, the fact that they were published on a professionally-run and commercial news website," as well as the "insufficient measures taken by Delfi to weed out the comments in question and the low likelihood of a prosecution of the users who posted the comments," and the moderate sanction imposed on Delfi.
In the wake of this judgment, the legal situation is complicated. In an email to Ars, T J McIntyre, who is a lecturer in law and Chairman of Digital Rights Ireland, the lead organisation that won an important victory against EU data retention in the Court of Justice of the European Union last year, explained where things now stand. "Today's decision doesn't have any direct legal effect. It simply finds that Estonia's laws on site liability aren't incompatible with the ECHR. It doesn't directly require any change in national or EU law. Indirectly, however, it may be influential in further development of the law in a way which undermines freedom of expression. As a decision of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR it will be given weight by other courts and by legislative bodies."
[...]
As Access's Micek told Ars: "The website argued that its 'freedom to impart information created and published by third parties'—the commenters—was at stake. Delfi invoked its Article 10 rights to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights and the [ECHR] accepted the case."
Wiggin gives details that the claimant was a shipping company, an article concerning the operations of which attracted a large number of venomous comments. Despite the EUR30,000 claim for damages, the ECHR awarded non-pecuniary damages of EUR320.
Editor's Note: The ruling is not saying that all websites are accountable for all comments. In this case, the news site published an article which was intended to stir up public sentiment, and subsequently took no action when the user comments became so extreme as to fall under the 'Hate Speech' law. The publication of hate speech is an offence in Europe. Secondly, this occurred in Europe - claims that this has contravened the rights of people based upon the laws of other countries elsewhere are irrelevant. The Court accepted the news site's 'rights of freedom of expression' as covered by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.]
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:43PM
In this case, the news site published an article which was intended to stir up public sentiment, and subsequently took no action when the user comments became so extreme as to fall under the 'Hate Speech' law.
Saw this on Ars and when looking up further on the ruling itself [coe.int] para 115 says:
Then from 116
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @05:26PM
Doesn't matter. Hate speech is double-plus good but inciting violence is undoubtedly a crime. Either the forum owner refers illegal comments to the police or by removing comments from public view are conspiring to remove the evidence of criminal activity.
(Score: 2) by Jiro on Wednesday June 17 2015, @07:05PM
That makes it less worrying than otherwise, but there's still cause for concern. For one thing, although the ruling says it doesn't apply to other forums, the rationale for that is limited to "it doesn't apply to other forums because they don't have an economic interest". Unfortunately, an economic interest is a vague thing. Is any site run using donations a site where the owner has an economic interest? Or any site using Google ads or Amazon referral links? Or any site where someone is a writer or other person who makes money from publicity and having a web site raises their profile? What about a separate section of a newspaper site used for blogs? .
It also says that "a bulletin board where users can freely set out their ideas on any topics without the discussion being channelled by any input from the forum’s manager", which means that moderation to remove trolls or spam could make you liable for removing hate speech.
(Score: 2) by Aichon on Wednesday June 17 2015, @09:47PM
So, if I'm to understand correctly, /. and SN could be in trouble still, since their editorializing the user-submitted info would presumably be considered a form of providing content?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2015, @06:46AM
As far as I know, neither SN nor /. is operating in Europe, so I don't think they are affected. IANAL however, and cannot exclude that some laws apply in situations where I wouldn't expect them to.