Italian Court Rules Web Editors Not Responsible For Comments

itwbennett writes "Internet freedom got a boost Wednesday when Italy's highest court ruled that the editors of online publications can't be held legally responsible for defamatory comments posted by their readers. The judges said online publications could not be treated in the same way as traditional print media and could not be expected to exercise preventative editorial control over readers' comments."

Comments

Re:Sadly

[CmdrPony]

The poster? Just that it doesn't show your details on the page doesn't mean it makes you invulnerable to prosecution if you break the law. Even Slashdot saves the ip addresses of commenters and if you post something that breaks the law and police comes asking about it, they have to hand out the details. That is not going to ever change either.

Seen a photo of the judges?

[Provocateur]

Can anyone verify that the court is not made up of CmdrTaco, CowboyNeal and other ex-/. editors wearing robes and fake Italian accents?

Re:Seen a photo of the judges?

[Neil Boekend]

They'll probably have mustaches, are muching on mushrooms and are looking for a princess in a pink dress.

Sharpen your keyboards, ACs!

[srussia]

I hold that anonymous allegations, however defamatory, should not be prosecutable. It's anonymous, wouldn't a reasonable person just dismiss any such allegation considering the source?

Got my Nomex suit on, so let's go!

On the other hand ...

[Taco Cowboy]

If everything has to go all the way to the court system, how can the society function?

Re:On the other hand ...

[Kjella]

If everything has to go all the way to the court system, how can the society function?

Quite well, actually. It doesn't mean that every instance of something has to go to court, you have big decisions like Sony vs Betamax and then most variations are considered settled case law. There'll always be borderline cases but the contested areas get smaller and smaller. Both in common law and civil law systems you look to higher courts, past cases and similar cases in other jurisdictions and try to be consistent, even if you have different concepts of precedent. Editorial responsibility for comments posted online is typically such a discussion, it'll probably end up in some superior court somewhere and be settled, unless the politicians pass specific laws to make it perfectly clear.

Re:Which countries do?

[getuid()]

Germany.

Google for "Störerhaftung", for example.

Re:Sadly

[dotancohen]

The poster? Just that it doesn't show your details on the page doesn't mean it makes you invulnerable to prosecution if you break the law. Even Slashdot saves the ip addresses of commenters and if you post something that breaks the law and police comes asking about it, they have to hand out the details. That is not going to ever change either.

I do not know about today, but back when /. did not save the IP addresses of people posting with UID 666. That actually came to court once, I think, when some Anonymous Coward posted text from the Scientology holy book (copyrighted material).

Odd world-view

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother-in-law once asked me how to remove a comment critical of their (brick-and-mortar) bridal fashion store from an online shop-review forum. At first I didn't understand her question, simply because the idea was too foreign for my brain to parse, and then we had a lively discussion about freedom of speech.

It's good to see this court ruled the way it did, but it remains baffling to me how confused some people are about the mechanics of online forums. And I don't mean the technical mechanics, but the idea that comments/forum posts are content that are not controlled by the site's owner. This seems to be incomprehensible to some people.

Re:Odd world-view

[garcia]

I operate a website which has a local, loyal, knowledgeable, and (many time) contentious userbase. These people routinely post comments which get to the heart of the matter and because of the content of the site (restaurant reviews and local politics (county/city level)) can cause business owners and politicians to become upset.

One particular business, which isn't local yet but plans to be in the next year+, had some representatives post comments on the site and engage my readership. While I always track down new commenters to the best of my ability, especially to out astrotufing, these reps took the time to clearly announce who they were before I had to do any real work (thanks!)

However, after they posted some comments they realized two things:

1. They didn't sound very good.

2. They didn't like what my readers had to say.

As a result of this several exchanges went back and forth with them trying to get me to allow their comments and the comments of others to be edited/deleted.

Obviously the repeated answer I gave was "No."

---

People are learning about the Internet, especially PR, but for the most part they're very naive. I continually catch business owners or their reps trying to post astroturf comments in favor of the business and I happily out them. This happens on a continual basis and really brings into question sites such as Urbanspoon (which I actively support on my site) and Yelp.

If you're interested you can see one of my discussions about this here: http://www.lazylightning.org/astroturfing-poor-attempts-at-changing-opinion

However, if I am told by a court order to remove the comments, I will. I will go to bat for as long as I can before I have to put my financial stake on the line for a bunch of people on the Internet. I do my best to keep them anonymous (no long-term logging, allow them to use any non-bouncing e-mail address that they actually check) but I will only go so far.

Re:Odd world-view

[Just Some Guy]

I got a series of robocalls from someone claiming to be Rachel with "Card Services" wanting to help lower my credit card interest rate. I blogged about it, and 280,000 hits and 972 comments to that page later, I guess I wasn't the only one they were pestering. I removed exactly two comments from that post ever:

The first was when a poster alleged that a certain person was responsible for all the calls. I got a letter from that person's lawyer telling me to take down the site because it contained libelous statements, and attached a 20-page printout of all the comments that were attached to that post at that time. I said, "no. Tell me specifically which comments you're referring to and I'll evaluate them. Also tell your client to quit calling me." The end result is that they asked me to remove one comment with the guy's home information, and I thought that was pretty reasonable so I complied. I also got the lawyer to formally state on record that their client was not a telemarketer. I figured that if they'd pursued further legal action and it turned out that the client really was a telemarketer, it'd be handy to show a judge that they'd previously asked their lawyers to lie in writing.

The second comment was full of racial slurs. I'm a huge proponent of freedom of speech and had a hard time deciding how to handle it, but in the end decided that the poster could find their own soapbox to broadcast racism and that I wanted no part in it.

Re:Sadly

[f()rK()_Bomb]

Slashdot might not legally have to, but your ISP sure does. Standard data retention laws. I'd imagine slashdot does save ips just even for stats and tracking purposes.

A small, meaningless victory

[Hentes]

Italy still has strict limitations on free speech, this victory is but a drop in the ocean.

Re:A small, meaningless victory

[worf_mo]

Care to point out which legal limitations you are referring to?

The problem with free speech in Italy is not caused by the law, but by the media monopoly that is in the hand of a single family, and by the organized crime. Journalists have to fear for their job - and sometimes for their physical integrity - when their work covers the "wrong" person. Dissenting voices from the population are gladly ignored by mainstream media (unless it fits their agenda), and when they cannot be ignored they are pictured as silly, selfish, violent, or anti-democratic.

Michele Santoro had to leave the (publicly funded) RAI because of his critical stance to Berlusconi's political role, and he has received death threats because of his reports. This is the real threat to free speech in Italy right now.

Re:A small, meaningless victory

[Hentes]

Here is a nice example.

Re:Which countries do?

[Chrisq]

This is a country that as recently as 2002 imprisoned a newspaper editor for running articles suggesting some judges were mismanaging cases and handing out inappropriate sentences.

Did he get an appropriate sentence?

Re:Sadly

[gutnor]

The poster? Just that it doesn't show your details on the page doesn't mean it makes you invulnerable to prosecution if you break the law.

Yet, to post on most website, including Slashdot, you need to relinquish any rights you have on what you said. It seems to be that if you are responsible for the negative consequences of what you post, you should retain some modicum control on it.

For example imagine you are drunk and post something offensive on slashdot - you cannot go back and delete it before it offends more people. If slashdot then randomly select your comment and use it as a quote, you also need to assume responsibility for that. And if in 5 years someone digs up your comment, you are still responsible for it.

That's not a problem, especially not on slashdot, when you understand what you are doing. Not sure it is clear to the masses though.

Re:Which countries do?

[somersault]

You mean an appropriate sentence for publishing inappropriate sentences? :p

Re:Sadly

[shentino]

Which was only a problem because the legal system let Scientology treat their religious texts as trade secrets or something. Something related to intellectual property for sure.

You'd think if the religion was any good they'd want their text spread as far and wide as possible.

I don't get it.

After his...

[Kamiza Ikioi]

...career as a judge in Italy, Captain Obvious will be running for political office. And there was singing and dancing in the streets of Italy!