Slashdot Mirror
EU Court Holds News Website Liable For Readers' Comments
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."
Now we can insult ourselves with anonymous posts and then sue the posting site for 500$.
Nospam007 you are moron!
Ooops, forgot to click the 'Post anonymously' checkbox.
This is not EU law, it is the ECHR which relates to the Convention on Human Rights - a separate body from the EU...
Apparently it isn't just our appellate courts here in the States that have gone batshit crazy. The insanity seems to be spreading.
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.
"Offensive views" should be protected speech.
Opinions on that are divided. Most countries draw a line somewhere. Some European countries outlaws nazi propaganda, for example. The U.S. allows that, but outlaws other things: You can't publish slander - nasty lies about named persons.
The question here is, whatever the nature of the "illegal speech", should a website be held responsible for postings by users? If so, all such sites will need moderators - or they will be open to trivial and costly attacks. (I.e. someone post slander themselves and then sue the website operator.)
From the article:
In other words, the EU allows its nations to finetune their own interpretation of freedom of speech within certain boundaries and it ruled that the Estonian law does not violate those boundaries. This is a good thing as every country and culture values the balance of rights differently.
And nothing of value will be lost.
It shouldn't matter who made the comments. Even if the site themselves posted the shit on purpose, "Offensive views" should be protected speech.
The "European Court of Human Rights" doesn't seem to give a damn about Human Rights.
That really depends on what you define as a human right, and how it affects other's rights. I do agree with you, but their reasoning was (FTA) "Article 10 of E.U. law allowed freedom of expression to be interfered with by national courts in order to protect a person's reputation." In other words, it's up to the member nation as to what constitutes libel. In the US it's libelous if you know it's not true.
In the US for example, speech isn't 100% free. If something damages somebody's reputation, you better be able to show that you believed it was true or you're on the hook for libel or slander. A lot of other countries have where speech that damages reputation is considered libelous in certain circumstances even if it's true. The comments may or may not be truthful, though it sounds like there was malice behind them, and may or may not have been considered libel in the US or other countries in addition to Estonia. That's not really the big issue here because that's nothing new. The big issue is that the news site was responsible for a comment that somebody else posted. Slippery slope and all.
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
most of TFA:
In January 2006, Delfi published an article about a ferry company's decision to change its routes and thus delay the opening of alternative and cheaper ice roads to certain islands.
Many readers then wrote highly offensive or threatening posts about the ferry operator and its owner. The owner successfully sued Delfi in April 2006 and was awarded €320 (US$433).
Delfi argued that it was not responsible for the comments and that the fine violated E.U. freedom of expression laws. However the judges agreed that Article 10 of E.U. law allowed freedom of expression to be interfered with by national courts in order to protect a person's reputation, as long as the interference was proportionate to the circumstances.
The E.U. court decided that it was proportionate because, given the nature of the article, Delfi should have expected offensive posts and exercised an extra degree of caution.
In addition, the website did not appear to take any proactive steps to remove the defamatory and offensive comments, relying instead on automated word-filtering of certain vulgar terms or notification by users.
The article's webpage did state that the authors of comments would be liable for their content, and that threatening or insulting comments were not allowed. However, since readers were allowed to make comments without registering their names, the identity of the authors would have been extremely difficult to establish. Making Delfi legally responsible for the comments was therefore practical, said the court. It was also reasonable, because the news portal received commercial benefit from comments being made.
My takeaway: slope not slippery.
I've seen many news web sites, in France, that shut down the comment feature in advance for articles about subjects usually prone to racist or antisemitic comments.
I have mixed feelings about this kind of limitations, they look like full preventive cencoreship.
Sometimes they can resort to manual comment moderation for this type of subject.
you do not have to show that you believed it was true, they have to show that you knew it was false
You can't publish slander - nasty lies about named persons.
Yes you can; it just needs to have the right context.
You just can't assert it as a matter of fact, but opinion.
Thanks for producing a better summary of the article than what was posted on /.
Everyone is freaking out over some slippery slope, when in reality it looks more like the courts handled this in a totally reasonable manner. Even the fine was a reasonable one.
I think the bigger issue here is that the site didn't have anyone actively moderating the page.
A very interesting piece of info is at the bottom of TFA:
since readers were allowed to make comments without registering their names, the identity of the authors would have been extremely difficult to establish. Making Delfi legally responsible for the comments was therefore practical, said the court. It was also reasonable, because the news portal received commercial benefit from comments being made.
As long as the comments are clearly delineated from editorial content, I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to hold the paper responsible for the content of the comments. (Not to mention that holding a newspaper liable under human rights laws for "offensive" speech would be laughed out of nearly any court in the US. That wouldn't stop some clowns from trying, or a particularly brain-addled judge from occasionally issuing an injunction, but it'd never stick.)
Yes, the comments of many news websites are worthless cesspools of scum and villainy. But there's better ways to prevent that than holding newspapers legally liable for comment content.
The E.U. court decided that it was proportionate because, given the nature of the article, Delfi should have expected offensive posts and exercised an extra degree of caution.
In addition, the website did not appear to take any proactive steps to remove the defamatory and offensive comments, relying instead on automated word-filtering of certain vulgar terms or notification by users.
I see, so you think it's not okay to post a news article on a website if they can expect offensive posts? And that a website operator needs to take more proactive steps than work-filter and notification by users? That pretty much means that a website operator needs to manually read every single comment or post and determine if it constitutes defamation. I wonder how big a team of lawyers it would take to make that happen on slashdot.
TractorBarry is a raging homo/lesbian/paedo/other, who likes nothing more than to take advantage of vulnerable young people. he's predatory, merciless and ruthless.
TractorBarry lives at 123 Fake Street, Springfield, 90210. If you happen to be in the area, pop over and tell him how you feel about his homo/lesbian/paedo tendencies.
TractorBarry is an abomination, and will hopefully contract cancer and die really soon. He's the product of a mother who was hooked on crack and gave blowjobs to just about anyone so she could get her next fix. His dad was a $country hating fascist/socialist/marxist/communist/capitalist who would think nothing of screwing over his fellow man just to steal a quick buck.
Now, tell me again how any of this is a worthy addition to the actual subject at hand, or how it adds anything useful to the discussion? It could equally have been written as "but you may find people use the most base, degenerate and inappropriate insults when proper prose would be more useful". One form is acceptable, the other is not. In slashdot world, one form gets modded +1, the other "troll". The latter gets hidden for the majority of readers, thus avoids polluting the conversation needlessly.
I understand this ruling probably has unintended consequences, but there's no need for newspapers to leave the truly inappropriate on their sites. Heck, if I can remove them from my little blog which makes no money whatsoever, newspapers who make money from their sites can sure remove them. The judgement makes this activity a cost of doing business if your business is soliciting comments from the public. Seems fair enough to me (on the surface, at least).
If something damages somebody's reputation, you better be able to show that you believed it was true or you're on the hook for libel or slander.
If only that was true.
In the US, the burden of proof is on the accuser of libel, not the defendant. Meaning you have to prove that someone knew it was false and still presented it as the truth to prove libel. This is very hard to do without a paper trail.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
The European Court of Human Rights is NOT an E.U. court.
Please get the facts straight,
Not everything that's posted on the Internet is the truth.
Blasphemy!!!!
Quick, someone grab a CAT-o-5-tails and give this lad the whippin' his motherboard shoulda!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Here is the actual rulling rather than a paraphrased version. The important bit follows;
In assessing this question, the Court assessed four key issues. First, the context of the posts. The comments had been insulting, threatening and defamatory. Given the nature of the article, the company should have expected offensive posts, and exercised an extra degree of caution so as to avoid being held liable for damage to an individual’s reputation.
Second, the steps taken by Delfi to prevent the publication of defamatory comments. The article’s webpage did state that the authors of comments would be liable for their content, and that threatening or insulting comments were not allowed. The webpage also automatically deleted posts that contained a series of vulgar words, and users could tell administrators about offensive comments by clicking a single button, which would then lead to the posts being removed. However, the warnings failed to prevent a large number of insulting comments from being made, and they were not removed in good time by the automatic-word filtering or by the notice-and-take-down notification system.
Third, whether the actual authors of the comments could have been made liable for them. The owner of the ferry company could, in principle, have attempted to sue the specific authors of the offensive posts rather than Delfi. However, the identity of the authors would have been extremely difficult to establish, as readers were allowed to make comments without registering their names. Therefore many of the posts were anonymous. Making Delfi legally responsible for the comments was therefore practical; but it was also reasonable, because the news portal received commercial benefit from comments being made.
Finally, the court addressed the consequences of Delfi being made liable. The sanctions imposed by the Estonian courts against the company had been fairly small. Delfi was required to pay a EUR 320 fine, and the courts did not make any orders about how the portal should protect third party rights in the future in a way that might limit free speech.
Taking into account all of these points, the Court held that making Delfi liable for the comments was a justified and proportionate interference with its right to freedom of expression. There had therefore been no violation of Article 10.