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."
The Slashdot moderators don't censor; they rate things. I still see every single post. Zero posts are hidden. Which posts have you had outright deleted or modified against your wishes lately?
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.
The Guardian has been doing a lot of research on police killing people in the US compared to the rest of the world.
Here's a good summary article:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-...
A few statistics from the article:
Fact: Police in the US have shot and killed more people – in every week this year – than are reportedly shot and killed by German police in an entire year.
Fact: Police in the US fatally shot more people in one month this year than police in Australia officially reported during a span of 19 years.
Fact: Police in Canada average 25 fatal shooting a year. In California, a state just 10% more populous than Canada, police in 2015 have fatally shot nearly three times as many people in just five months.
Fact: Police fired 17 bullets at Antonio Zambrano-Montes, who was “armed” with a rock. That’s nearly three times what police in Finland are reported to have fired during all of 2013.
Fact: In the first 24 days of 2015, police in the US fatally shot more people than police did in England and Wales, combined, over the past 24 years.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Nothing is "outright deleted with some regularity." The flag just puts the comment on a list that an editor looks over every day. We ban spammers who we find leaving links in comments, and occasionally mod down any egregious trolls that aren't already at -1. That's it. We've deleted comments in the past under legal threat but it's not our policy to do so normally. This comment showed up on the list but none of the editors are going to delete it. We think it's important to maintain a place where you can say whatever you want, even if that thing isn't popular or as in this case, correct.