Slashdot Mirror
European Court: Websites Are Responsible For Users' Comments
An anonymous reader writes: A new ruling from the European Court of Human Rights found it perfectly acceptable to hold websites responsible for comments left by users. Experts are worried the ruling will encourage websites to censor content posted by users out of concern that they're opening themselves up to legal liability. The judgment also seems to support the claim that "proactive monitoring" can be required of website owners. Peter Micek of digital rights group "Access" said, "This ruling is a serious blow to users' rights online. Dissenting voices will have fewer outlets in which to seek and impart opinions anonymously. Instead, users at risk will be dragged down by a precedent that will keep them from accessing the open ocean of ideas and information."
Isn't this why the internet revolted about SOPA?
Does SLAPP not protect the public against such rulings in the US?
Welcome our new authoritarian overlords.
Dissenting voices will have fewer outlets in which to seek and impart opinions anonymously. Instead, users at risk will be dragged down by a precedent that will keep them from accessing the open ocean of ideas and information."
I don't see how this affects the "seek" side of the statement, and as for the "impart" side, all you need is an IP address?
Suck it.
- An American Enjoying Their Freedom of Speech
I quite like the freedom to swear up a fucking storm and make unpleasant comments.
and that is what the Republicans want.
Well, Mr. Greek, are you trying to see if you can get the EU to come down on Slashdot?
Hopefully this ruling will be used to muzzle the euroskeptics and silence unwarranted criticism of the EU institutions. People don't know how good they have it. They don't need "freedom" they just can't handle, they need unity and purpose and only a united Europe can provide this. Europe is more important than the life of a single human or indeed of whole generations, but small folk do not have the scope to understand this. Silencing dissent is a starting point to instill a European mindset into the populace who has the duty and the privilege to toil for the great destiny of the greatest civilization that has ever been and will ever be.
I guess the United States is ahead of the world when it comes to the freedom to speak.
It's a bit shocking that other governments need to make sure that everyone is politically correct and doesn't bully people, and are forced to accept other peoples opinions without being able to actually address them.
My Mom once told me that if I swim in the sewer, , I'll start to smell like it.
If a person considers a site to be bad - stop swimming in that sewer.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
I would think this would be beneficial for trolls/assholes/etc. You could pretty much just say whatever the fuck you wanted to and let the website get in trouble or force the website to enforce some stricter policies.
European Court of Human Rights are idiots! And now slashdot can be held liable for my comment! Hahahaha!
Every place have their pros and cons. Often, people in forums like to dump on the U.S. but I'm still glad it's my country. I guess, by far and large, laws reflect the values of the land.
What the hell is wrong with them?
So, the only relevant question to me is, how do we defeat or circumvent this?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If I hosted a website in the EU it would mean making every-post moderated by default or simply hosting it elsewhere. This is kind of like making paper manufacturers responsible for things that people write on the paper.
I read about this today, and what this Slashdot/Dice crap summary is claiming is absolute BULLSHIT.
The case in question is regarding defamatory comments posted to a site that the victim went to court over. The courts ordered that the content be taken down. The lazy assed website owners took SIX WEEKS to remove the content.
There is not ONE jurisdiction in the world where that would be considered acceptable.
Websites are NOT being held generically responsible for the content posted. In fact, the articles about this topic make it clear that the courts said only large commercial operators such as newspapers can be held responsible and fined for failing to take down content in a timely fashion when ordered to do so.
But hey, Dice just LOVES their clickbait lately, don't they?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You heard it first here. This is a gross misinterpretation.
Most people don't even read comments online. So who is it gonna hurt, someone who thinks it's the only way to communicate?
Get fucking real.
You use the tools that don't belong to you (the website) to write in a place that, honestly, doesn't get much attention anyway.
This is the reality.
Some group of tight assholed union leaders can't stop you from getting away from your computer and striking up a conversation with other people. People, who give a shit about things that matter more: a life outside of the Internet.
There's one there. And you can live it too!
I am sure there is no lack of smart and highly educated people, but you can not have innovation without a high degree of freedom. Imagine running Facebook or Twitter under these kind of laws. The tragedy is that US laws can be easily improved on by a country that wants to be in forefront of technology. Certainly a country motivated to become tech center of the world can respect privacy much more than NSA.
... many European websites have started hosting in East Asia.... apparently the last bastion of free speech...
Seriously how sad would that be? Fucking France and Sweden. They really need to stop it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The abstract is misleading in so many different ways...
1) this court is not a court of the EU but the European Court of Human Rights, "belonging to" the Council of Europe, a completely seperate entity.
2) the court "only" decides, if a *specific* ruling of a court in one of the member states violates human rights
3) the claimant that wanted the local ruling to be overturned is a largish company that not only *six weeks* to remove "hate speech" but has earlier done so faster *and* automatically
Not only does the ruling not apply to small bloggers etc (IIRC specifically said so by the court!), it only says that member states *may* (or may not!) have legislation that makes it possible to sue a *company* that does not remove hate speech *if the company knows of it* and therefore *knowingly* distributes it.
1. the ruling is about comments on news articles, not discuss boards.
2. some comments contained hate speech (identified someone with real name, offensive and threatening)
3. the victim of said comments asked for removal and the news agency did remove after 6 weeks
4. a small court ruling said that was too late and the news agency should pay 320EUR to the victim.
5. news agency tries to get the ruling overturned by another court, arguing that *their* rights have been violated by the first ruling
6. this article is about the fact that the news agency lost the trial mentioned in 5.
I think if they had removed the hate speech in a timely manner, none of this would have happened.
In the soon to occur dystopian future, 4chan will become the last beacon of light for freethinking individuals everywhere. God help us all.
Same AC here. I actually think your comment should be modded as +1, Informative. I did not mod you down. My jest was a bit flat.
"He sounded like Jean-François Revel, a French socialist writer who talks about one of the great unexplained phenomena of modern astronomy: namely, that the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe." - Tom Wolfe, 'The Intelligent Coed's Guide to America'
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Wilkommen am viertel Reich.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
But that's just my opinion.
fuck me as if we don't have enough to contend with here on slashdot with moderators (users) getting into a bun-fight over what comments are appropriate and which aren't, under this ruling the slashdot web site owners would have to review all the comments *and* the moderations *and* all the meta-moderations *anyway*! let the moderation wars begin... starting with this comment, yaay!
8. ......Instead, the Court has adopted case-specific reasoning and at the same time has left the relevant principles to be developed more clearly in subsequent case-law.
15. Having regard to the clearly unlawful nature of the comments in question, as well as the fact that they remained on the news portal for six weeks before they were removed, we do not find it disproportionate for the Supreme Court to find Delfi liable as it had “failed to remove the comments
There is nothing sensational here. The court didn't say you were liable upfront, it didn't say that you couldn't be (and in some extreme cases that might make sense). But in this case the court ruled that holding someone liable for refusing to take down illegal speech hosted by them is not a free speech violation.
There is nothing new here. The ruling does not say you must moderate all comments.
The higher up the heads are, the thinner the air gets and with less oxygen, brain function diminishes. Blown up heads don't affect this. Quite the opposite, with less density, oxygen can escape even better.
So if some website presents a malware ad that infects someone who is still stupid enough not to use an adblocker the site can be held liable for the damage? That sure would be a good thing.
...has nothing to do with the EU.
Just saying.
Hmmm, that's an interresting point of view, european court.
Do you have a website where I may comment on this?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The ruling (linked in TFA) is conveniently written in English. It is pretty scary stuff, but IANAL - any professionals out there want to comment?
First of all, the comments made to the article in question "were vulgar in form; they were humiliating and defamatory and impaired L.’s honour, dignity and reputation. The comments went beyond justified criticism and amounted to simple insults."
Here is one of the more egregious comments: "What are you whining for, knock this bastard down once and for all [.] In future the other ones ... will know what they risk, even they will only have one little life.". Others were just name calling.
This is where the European Charter of Human Rights gets it wrong, because it allows exceptions to freedom of expression for a huge array of possible reasons. In this case, presumably, "for the protection of the reputation...of others". Seems to me, if you can outlaw simple insults, and vague threats, you can outlaw essentially anything.
In any case, the case was appealed all the way to the ECHR. While the ECHR says some of the right words in their appendix - they're all worried about censorship - none of that has any legal relevance. The core of the actual ruling:
"Based on the concrete assessment of the above aspects, taking into account the reasoning of the Supreme Court in the present case, in particular the extreme nature of the comments in question, the fact that the comments were posted in reaction to an article published by the applicant company on its professionally managed news portal run on a commercial basis, the insufficiency of the measures taken by the applicant company to remove without delay after publication comments amounting to hate speech and speech inciting violence and to ensure a realistic prospect of the authors of such comments being held liable, and the moderate sanction imposed on the applicant company, the Court finds that the domestic courts’ imposition of liability on the applicant company was based on relevant and sufficient grounds"
tl;dr: The news company should have pro-actively moderated comments and immediately - without any court case being required - removed the illegal comments. The court then goes on to express hope that this does not introduce a new reign of censorship, but that is exactly what is may do.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This ruling is about balance, it balances the freedom of speech against the freedom from harassment. You all scream that this hinders free speech, no it dosen't, it creates a legal protection against "let's all go and beat the shit out of Mr. L". To protect against such statements you basically have two roads, let everybody have a Colt and the right to use it, or a balanced court system. In Europe we have prefer the later.
The European Court of Human Rights and it's associated European Commision on Human Rights has been in the forefront of developing Human Rights in the last 50 years. It especially has frustrated governments by protecting individuals. It was the first international institution where an individual could get a case reviewed, though only after exhausting all national options. The court itselfs is composed of Human Rights experts representing no national government, they are elected based on their own personal merit and good name. This court represents the best protection an individual has against an overreaching government or a discriminating state, or if you will the terror of the majority.
Most of the individuals we on Slashdot hails as champions of free speech would probably find protection under this court, unless they break all laws intentionally without proper cause. As such, the end does not always justify the means, having exposed the secrets of a bad government does not automatically protect you from rape charges.
So if any country within the European Council does issue a law that binds professional outlets to monitor comments and take down hate speech and comments incensing violence it may feel justified by this ruling, but vice versa no government within the European Council may be forced by this ruling to pass such laws.
...
The downside of all this is, that certain governments (I'm looking at you [name redacted]) will use this ruling to implement laws which will restrict the free expression of opinions online, but then there is still the ECHR to decide if such a law would violate Article 10.2 of the European Convention of Human Rights
Well, I find talk about cheese and dairy products as deeply and as personally offensive to my religious sensibilities as the most devout chrisitianist.
I hereby demand that websites that host any discussion of such, be immediately prosecuted.
The above of course, demonstrates that offensive is in the eye of the beholder. When an authoritarian regime decides to make such judgments on the views of others, not matter how abhorrent they may be either to ourselves, or to the majority of the population, democracy has come to an end in that country.
Of course, the worrying thing here is that Europe is not just one country - a fact that I'm sure will surprise a good number of Americans, I'm sure.
The courts need some younger judges, people who understand the current technology and times we live in (early 80's child here)
It is in no way reasonable to hold websites to be responsible for comments to their pieces, all this will result in is comments being turned off on all news stories and reddit / some other link site being uses for said comments, and achieving nothing
Reasonable discussion is expected on articles nowadays, granted there are a lot of trolls, however that is the reality in life, assholes exist and they are in the vocal minority. Move on
Internet comments are not a forum for intellectual discussion (sadly), so much as i may try to be reasonable here i'm sure i'll get flamed just the same.
This is just my opinion among many others, however i hope that those who agree with the me will stand up for our rights to say what we want to say without being sued / deleted.
all the best and thankyou to everyone reading
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Finally someone on Slashdot would have to read my comments...
If a website is responsible for my comments, then I want to be able to sue it if it censors me. So it's responsible for both leaving and removing comments. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That should make the internet a wonderful place.
So if there's a website I dont like, all I need to do is post some controversial comments anonymously. Then file a complaint and the site goes away! I love it how the the liberalism in the EU tends to avoid thinking things through.
If I were to post some KP to slashdot, they would not only have to censor it, but have felt morally obligated to do so. And they would want to report me for it too.
When my employer insists that I refrain from posting on FB or whatever bollocks, because it reflects on their business, that's the same thing here.
And who the hell wouldn't want lies posted by Fox News "reporters" to be actionable against Fox News Corp to get them to try a little reality in their puff pieces?
It is not that this ruling is good, but that there's no way to describe why this is wrong and the other things ALREADY DONE are fine. Until the other laws explain WHY they pertain only to the sphere that they are "accepted" to be valid for, the ruling here HAS to be the explanation of how it works for comments on blogs too.
You didn't give Abu Hamsa a pass because he didn't kill anyone, only talked about how others ought to be killed. You made him responsible for the actions of others exhorted to do terrible things by him.
Explain why it's different. And make it a law. THEN you can go to the court and get this law repealed.
I guess /. members from Europe won't see this post soon. It's been nice communicating with you!
No, you'd get your post that you put up there deleted. This would not close the website down but waste your time (three times) and theirs (once).
Fucking moron.
This kind of thing is the reason why we should support Project Maelstrom. I'm hoping that one day it will allow for dynamic content such as commenting.
If someone writes on the wall of a building, would you hold the building owner accountable?
...go fuck yourselves with a Nazi.
Fascism is alive and well in the EU...
Funnystuff just read stallmans writing about electronic reading rights and apply it in writing rights, and you live in modern europe that censorships thepiratebay (internet protocol don't even support sensorship) and now more widely adopted stance that publisher is responsible for comments, gg you enforced old hierarchies to digital domain in less than decade....
Or they know you are Greek because you tell them - in almost every post.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Fortunately Slashdot is located in the U.S. and you can still comment all you like.
Do not EVER yield on your freedoms. You idiots in the U.K. have been doing that for years, and look at the results.
1. Give up your guns and your ABILITY to revolt, and now the politicians are not afraid of you, so they become a bunch of mini Hitlers.
2. Allow Muslims to take over your countries and seize control over what you can say and do.
3. Allow the U.K. government to continue to shave away more of your rights and freedoms as they transfer control from you, to them.
DUMB!
That is a good explanation too my friend... but i think that in THIS case (and reason for my "paranoid rant" you respond to) it's not so important the fact that i tell them that i am a Greek (in almost every post... i think i made one comment about systemd that i did not mentioned it!), but the fact that i tell them that i am Greek (ooops... i did it again!) NATIONALIST...
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
I tip my hat to you, good sir.
Facebook could now be liable for millions of retarded posts...
any and all censorship of any word is a crime against humanity.
If you cant handle words there is not much of anything else you can handle.
Slashdot fucks with posts. Recently an ascii penis post (first post, mind you) was moved to the bottom of the discussion. It was generating so many replies, that they tried to hide it at the bottom of the discussion. First post is first post. That is a modification of the chronology and an attempt to alter the course of the discussion in my eyes.
Is an internet archiving service responsible for the content of its archives?
The Europeans are responsible for a lot of stupidity.
A post about EU. Let's talk about America.
Oh and Sieg heil!
Should the judge be held responsible for the murder?
Europe is not the USA, and trying to compare the two is often misleading. The US is far more federal, far more centralized. This particular court for instance is one of the broadest (47 member states) and shallowest (just basic Human Rights). It's come under fire recently for trying to expand its reach, with the UK threatening to quit outright.
So in this case, the ECHR did the right thing, and did not try to enforce its own opinion. Instead, it merely verified that the Estonian laws were reasonable. As a result, the Estonian ruling still stands, and the responsibility for that ruling lies with the Estonian judges.
Also, I don't see how these Estonian laws would have impacted Facebook or Twitter. AFAICT, those services are not anonymous. Delfi got into troubles because they accepted anonymous comments, and by publishing them took responsibility for them.
Well people need to be held accountable for their actions. What? Some think this is a violation of rights? Try privileges. People should be able to destroy the lives of others with the click of a button? And safely behind the mask of the "right" to do so? I don't think so. Policing every individual isn't realistic. Policing the owners of the services allowing individuals to engage in easy drive-by seemingly unaccountable "road-rage" or rather "internet-rage" where they think there isn't any consequence to their behaviour ...
well.... That makes sense to me.
Buck's gotta finally stop somewhere.
Especially if people do not know how to behave towards one another in a civil society.
...in forums hosted in small island nations and obscure African anarchies.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
here is your fine âââââââââââ lolololoolol
The slave trade, french and english prison colonies, opium and tea wars, the assassination of Ferdinand, the reparations to France, 70 M. dead in the 1st and 2nd world wars, the boston bombers, the shoot-down of MH17, the worsening Ukrainian conflict, the rapid reopening of fallout shelters, the stand-up of nuclear first-strike capabilities on both sides, and the potential for around 50% of the European population to be vaporized within minutes.
Truly the cradle of democracy and civilization, a wide spectrum, bright and brilliant flash of a thousand points of light, illuminating the way toward our planet's "crispy on the outside, tender on the inside" future. Perhaps the Europeans should try shedding a tear at a war memorial for a change, rather than drinking themselves into a stupor, dancing around in lederhosen and clogs, and wolfing down bangers and mash as they power up for another goo session with the local bicycle, at least when they're not trying to censor the mean things people say on the Internet.
As the linked documents show, under Estonian law :
“No one’s honour or good name shall be defamed.”
"Everyone has the right to freely disseminate ideas, opinions, beliefs and other information by word, print, picture or other means. This right may be restricted by law to protect public order, morals, and the rights and freedoms, health, honour and the good name of others. This right may also be restricted by law for State and local government public servants, to protect a State or business secret or information received in confidence which has become known to them by reason of their office, and the family and private life of others, as well as in the interests of justice."
"There is to be no censorship.”
"The Government submitted that the interference with the applicant company’s rights under Article 10 had the legitimate aim of protecting the honour of others."
You, your morals, honor, and "good name".
Europe had some massive peace demonstrations in the 1970's and 1980's, where hundreds of thousands of people marched to try and put an end to the madness.
Please, march again, blame Reagan, Obama, or whoever is currently the steward of NATO. Burn effigies of the GOP leadership, blame the greedy Americans for the world's problems, blame the Republican Party war mongers, call us ignorant, backwards, racist, all the names you want, insult me, my family, and my ancestry -- I'll bow my head, hat in hand, and apologize for my crude and callous offenses to your collective honor and good name.
Just stop marching towards WW-3.
I wonder if the court has a place on their website to comment on their rulings?
If so then.... open the floodgates of comments!
-Eric
What if we ditch http, html and all the stack behing the world wide web and use other discussion platforms? e.g. IRC, mailing lists, custom made forums that use other protocols and don't require the use of a web browser. Would this ruling apply to those too? Who will be responsible then? The owners of the servers?
In other words, a site (i.e. Facebook) that makes shitloads of money by letting users put content on their servers, chickens out and doesn't want to take responsibility when people actually put content on their servers?
Just gimme your data for free (and you can also moderate it yourself) and I'll take the money!
Nice ;)