News Site Held Responsible for Users’ Defamatory Comments | Hacker News Reader

News Site Held Responsible for Users’ Defamatory Comments

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40 pointsqueeerkopf16 comments

I do recall an article being submitted to HN saying that the UK also has a law making site owners liable for user-generated comments unless they pro-actively moderate them. I don't understand there logic behind it, it's not possible to moderate any website with a decent amount of traffic.

I'm suprised this is happening in Estonia, I always thought of Estonia as excelling in the tech world compared with most EU countries.

> I do recall an article being submitted to HN saying that the UK also has a law making site owners liable for user-generated comments unless they pro-actively moderate them. I don't understand there logic behind it, it's not possible to moderate any website with a decent amount of traffic.

The idea that publishers have a positive duty to assure that what they publish is not harmful (libelous, or otherwise) with limited defenses is pretty common globally; the US idea that the freedom of speech is so strong publishers have a fairly minimal duty in this regard so long as harms are not intentional (or reckless in some cases) is, AFAIK, less common.

So the fact that it is burdensome on publishers and creates costs that would make certain forms of interaction difficult isn't considered problematic from that perspective -- what's problematic is the unpoliceable publications.

Exactly. It's a classic example of the clash of incommensurable goods.

I remember reading a discussion on a UK site that a person could be convicted of libel in the UK even if the statement was true. (I am American, so dont base your defense on my comments.)

> I remember reading a discussion on a UK site that a person could be convicted of libel in the UK even if the statement was true.

But that's true in the U.S also. It's called "false light", and basically it means you can construct a description of someone that's entirely true, but because of its negative slant, the person is put in a false light and you can be sued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_light

Quote : "False light differs from defamation primarily in being intended "to protect the plaintiff's mental or emotional well-being" rather than protect a plaintiff's reputation as is the case with the tort of defamation[1] and in being about the impression created rather than being about true or false." [emphasis added]

Tim Worstall at Forbes makes a very different assessment of the ruling [1]. He concludes that news portals might now be liable under all the different laws of their readers different jurisdictions.

I'm quite doubtful that the international laws would work that way. But maybe someone with more of a background in law can shed some light on these differing opinions? Might there actually be reason for concern for every web page operator who allows comments?

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/10/11/every-web...

here's a direct link to the decision http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-...

But what if you just run an imageboard or a forum? Any CRUD app with user generated content? Does it not matter if you have a policy of deleting generally threatening comments? I have a hard time accepting that interpretation, it's just too absurd to me ...

Utterly off topic, but why is there JSON in that url?

Shows up in the URL bar when you go to the HUDOC page and I just cut and pasted... I just noticed it's not actually necessary so I took it out of my comment.

well the part that worries me is the references to "hate speech". How much restricted speech is there in the EU? The most obvious bugaboo I can think of would be Nazis. Is that at the member level or EU wide?

The idea that popularity has been decided increase risk of going beyond the boundaries of "acceptable" speech is door wide open to abuse. It basically tells any site operator the more popular the more diligent you must be because you should know better

Probably in every european country there is some extremist group with an agenda "let's kill all [ethnic] or at least drive them out of our country", and of course it shows up in internet comments, so some hate speech exists - but the regulation of it varies from country to country.

It's even a continuous political issue, since there are always talks about the next countries entering Schengen, UE or Eurozone and the associated inner-migrations.

This is a "by country" thing, there is no European constitution and all European law is aimed at countries, not people (but some stuff is redacted like: "countries should have a law that does this or that"). Quite a lot of nazi comments (nationalist stuff, the idea of having been wronged in the last war, the idea that your race is superior, etc.) would probably fly in many countries I think. It's mostly the call for murder or physical arm that would trigger sanctions in many countries. And also groups with history of violence (like violent soccer fans or political activist whose demonstration always turn violent).

It's very ambitious to try to comment ECHR decisions in US context, it's a very technical thing where a citizen contests a Law of his own country in front of European judges. Those decision are to be interpreted as general, meaning that all the similar cases in other countries would be ruled in the same direction. I would let the european lawyer blogs do the interpretation.

There is time to protest:

>The judgment isn’t final. During the three-month period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. If it believes so, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If not, the original judgment becomes final on that day.

I'm not sure what particulars of Estonian law compelled them to unanimously decide this way. Maybe there is some strangeness there that means the ruling won't apply broadly, but it sure sounds wacky and problematic.

There's nothing in the Estonian law that compelled them, since as TFA says, the court was not looking at Estonian law. All the ECHR did look at the decision of Estonian courts and say, "this does not violate essential human rights".

Personally, I don't see why we should blame them for stupid Estonian laws and/or judges.

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