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EU Court Holds News Website Liable For Readers' Comments

Posted by samzenpus on from the sticks-and-stones dept.

angry tapir writes "Seven top European Union judges have ruled that a leading Internet news website is legally responsible for offensive views posted by readers in the site's comments section. The European Court of Human Rights found that Estonian courts were within their rights to fine Delfi, one of the country's largest news websites, for comments made anonymously about a news article, according to a judgment."

6 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Not just the USA anymore by The+Last+Gunslinger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apparently it isn't just our appellate courts here in the States that have gone batshit crazy. The insanity seems to be spreading.

  2. Self-censorship then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting
    Delfi allows comments on each article and it is one of the reasons why it got quite popular in the Baltics being among the first to do that. This ruling will likely result in disabling comments for controversial articles which is kind of ironic when you think of it while you'll be left commenting unworthy panda and rainbow articles.

    +1 Fail for EU Court. It's unfortunate since they usually do their job pretty fine.

  3. Re:No freedom of speech in Europe by canadiannomad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Exactly!
    Nobody should be forced to be thought police.
    And who is this that gets to define "offensive"? The person with the weakest skull?
    Also I can't help but feel that honest opinions absolutely cannot exist without real anonymity, and so real debate on topics would effectively be squashed.

    --
    Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
  4. News sites will stop allowing comments. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And nothing of value will be lost.

  5. If it's bad for science... by mschaffer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If comments are bad for science, why shouldn't they be bad for everyone else?

    http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/10/02/2059238/do-comments-on-web-pages-ruin-science

  6. Re:Nice! by boristdog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, can I sue anyone who downvotes me now, or everyone who doesn't upvote me? Or everyone who doesn't downvote a negative comment about me? Or anyone who upvotes a negative comment about me?

    Man, I'm moving to Estonia. Because not only will I get rich by suing commenters, a country with a name like that must have free drugs everywhere.