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European court decision: Websites are liable for users’ comments

120 points by suprgeek 11y ago

MarvinYork 11y ago
Can OP sue 4chan?
Xylakant 11y ago
The headline is pretty misleading. The ECHR decided that it's not a breach of european rights if a member countries law stipulates a liability for a commercial provider. For example german law still requires that the provider is notified before any liability takes effect. So the provider is liable to remove offending content in a reasonable time after being notified, and this decision doesn't change anything. For german readers a well written summary http://www.internet-law.de/2015/06/forenbetreiber-haftet-fuer-beleidigungen-der-nutzer-oder-doch-nicht.html http://www.internet-law.de/2015/06/forenbetreiber-haftet-fue...
- zerocrates 11y ago
  The article does eventually get around to being a little more levelheaded than its headline: "Today's decision doesn't have any direct legal effect. It simply finds that Estonia's laws on site liability aren't incompatible with the ECHR. It doesn't directly require any change in national or EU law. Indirectly, however, it may be influential in further development of the law in a way which undermines freedom of expression. As a decision of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR it will be given weight by other courts and by legislative bodies." Interestingly, US law is basically the exact opposite in this area and is very protective of website operators and service providers, in a way that it's not in other areas like copyright. The article notes there is (or can be) a DMCA-style notice-and-takedown system for defamation in Europe, but the surviving parts of the Communications Decency Act in the US really insulate websites from having to do much of anything at all about information their users provide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
  - Xylakant 11y ago
    The system is not exactly DCMA-style as you don't have to first take down the content and the provider can actually fight the decision on his own - which actually happens from time to time. Small providers and private persons obviously still suffer since they have a hard time defending but I seriously can't think of a better alternative. There are morons on the internet and there need to be ways to enforce a takedown for hate speech IMHO.
    - maxlybbert 11y ago
      > There are morons on the internet and there need to be ways to enforce a takedown for hate speech Why? I understand that if I run a blog I may not want to be associated with some comments people leave, so I have an incentive to police the comment section. But why should I be required to remove comments that other people may find offensive? Even comments that can only be taken as offensive? First, if people feel a need to advertise ignorance, intolerance, immaturity, etc. I see no reason to keep them from doing so. It makes life a lot easier for the rest of us when we need to determine who to associate with. Second, in the US, the accepted solution for speech you disagree with is more speech, not less. Don't silence your enemies; destroy their arguments. Show how they're immature, intolerant, ignorant, etc. I prefer to win the debate by having the better argument instead of by silencing critics.
      - marak830 11y ago
        This, im tired of having to worry if some speech will upset someone. HN has a fairly decent system of hiding oncw downvotes, arstechnica does as well. Maybe its time some people began acting like adults, and engaging in debate, or even just ignoring it completly. Someone called your company shit? So freaking what. Your a company, not a holy relic, suck it up and keep going, it wont matter in 3 minutes.
        icebraining 11y ago
        The discussion was about hate speech; calling some company shit is not hate speech under any legislation I know of. Let's not fall into arguing against strawmen.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Yeah but requiring a notice-and-takedown approach is quite reasonable. This is the equivalent of all EU countries being legally allowed to ban free speech on the Internet at a national level, if desired. Yeah, its not "changing anything" but its tantamount to admitting that Estonia is not a functioning democracy that respects fundamental human rights like free speech....and that it is OKAY for the EU.
  - arrrg 11y ago
    The zeal with which some people view free speech is really quite adorable. I don’t think it’s really so important. (It is important, sure, just not that important. And limiting free speech is certain a-ok with me, within limits.)
    - fweespeech 11y ago
      Very well. Stop posting completely on HN because HN is now liable even if it takes down hate speech within 24 hours of notification if it was run by an Estonian and/or had connections to Estonia [say via e-Residency]. Its cute how people are ready to sell other groups of people down the river without accepting the broader implications.
    - mikerichards 11y ago
      That's a horrible, immoral ideology you have there, but I'll defend your right to spew it.
  - Xylakant 11y ago
    You're pretty harsh with your judgement. The decision stipulates that a fine of 320 EUR for a large commercial provider in a case where it took weeks to take down extreme occurrences of hate speech does not violate fundamental human rights. The relevant quote from the judgement: 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, having regard to the margin of appreciation afforded to the respondent State.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
istvan__ 11y ago
RIP free speech. This is basically saying that highways are responsible for the damage bad drivers cause.
- jimmaswell 11y ago
  It's an area where European laws fall extremely short
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Maybe this is just my ignorant American self talking, but the speech laws in Europe seem just plain backwards.. decisions like this, the libel laws...
    - cm3 11y ago
      In the US you can stand on the street and deny the holocaust or preach hate against some part of the population and it's covered by free speech, isn't it? I think everybody should be allowed to say whatever they like even if it's hate speech but then again laws are in place to exclude hate speech. I hope that if any lunatic is allowed to say what they like we have to face them and evolve as societies but I may be too naive in expecting people to adapt to that. The rationale for disallowing certain speech is supposedly to limit offending people or luring the gullible into their hate mindset. However even with limited free speech hate mongerers on all continents manage to impress the young and ship them to ISIS-land. Would it be best if there's total free speech and we'd have to adapt and learn to ignore "trolls" like on the internet? Or are the lawmakers right in limiting free speech? At least in the case of libel I'm of the opinion that you should just shrug off what someone says about you. Haters will be everywhere. I mean we all know where contesting someone's public opinion of him got Mr Wylde in ye olde England. Had he listened to his friends and ignored the accusations he might have lived longer. Libel is often misused like the patent system and not used for its original intention. That might show we better get rid of libel as well while at it. Many people say bad things about me or you and I want more to do it so that I can grow a thicker skin. Opinions welcome as I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
ddebernardy 11y ago
No surprises here. In France, this has been the case for a long time btw: when you allow comments on your publication (print or web) you basically owe them and are responsible and liable for them. Prior jurisprudence includes Yahoo selling Nazi artifacts and getting fined for it. [1] If some nut job writes crap on your site you're basically in charge of monitoring and removing it. And in most of Europe, some things are simply off boundaries and not subjected to free speech - in contrast with the US. In particular hate speech. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!
deleted 11y ago
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Nadya 11y ago
I commented on this topic in another HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727988 The important part, in my eyes, is in my last response to dragonwriter, which I will repeat here. >You just no longer have to worry about the website who you've sued successfully in your local courts taking its offense at having being found liable to the ECHR. So it has precisely zero effect on Britain beyond not blocking certain types of liability that the British government might create through its own laws. As explained near the end of the article: >As a consequence, active intermediaries and blog operators will have considerable incentives to discontinue offering a comments feature, and the fear of liability may lead to additional self-censorship by operators. This is an invitation to self-censorship at its worst. The statues under the United Kingdom Hate Speech laws means people can sue in courts for comments containing hate speech and the ECHR now has a precedent to rule in their favor and hold the intermediate party liable for said comments. The result? Nobody wants to be held liable, so they shut down their comment sections. That's bad for free speech and is a side-entry form of censorship. Not direct from the state, but implied and enforced by the state on private entities. //end self quote Although the courts probably wouldn't hear it - wouldn't ISIS or criticisms of extremist readings/interpretations of the Qur'an be protected from hate speech under the U.K's current statutes? Just want to make sure I'm understanding the U.K's hate speech laws properly.
- tfgg 11y ago
  I went to an interesting seminar on UK defamation law as it relates to the UK, given by an experienced barrister. He didn't mention much about hate speech, so I don't know if it's relevant. Notes and slides from the seminar are here: http://francisdavey.github.io/defamation/ http://francisdavey.github.io/defamation/ and I highly recommend reading them, very interesting! It basically looks like a UK operator now has a fair amount of protection if they take reasonable actions.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    Under slide 21 - it seems (unless I am misreading) "honest opinion" is defensible. So if I call someone a shithead and hold that as my true opinion, it is defensible. But if I call someone a shithead as a matter-of-fact, it isn't. (replace shithead with most any slander: racist, pedophile, sexist) Slide 32 made me laugh. Slide 35 seems unreasonable. What if I went on vacation for a week? I only have 48 hours to operate in? So to legally cover my ass, I would have to hire someone to moderate the comment section of my blog while I went on a honeymoon? While this may be an excuse accepted by the court outside the letter-of-the-law (humans are a bit more... human in application of the law), the letter-of-the-law would hold me liable. There seems to be a loophole that isn't given thought. What if the original comment presupposes the removal and affirms that - "in such a case that a claim is made to remove this comment, my response is that this comment must be retained." and gives their name and address? Furthermore - wouldn't that put the commentator in potential harm/danger of their life (in an extreme scenario)? That hardly seems reasonable and only encourages them to not respond and have the comment removed. Which is harmful for free speech. Thanks for the slides. Informative although still a bit scary.
mark_l_watson 11y ago
Except for material that literally breaks the law, I tend to favor unfiltered free speech. One exception: sometimes people leave comments on my blog that are not about my post, but rather, links to their products, services, etc. I don't accept those. I don't feel like I need to support other people's free speech in these cases, on my blog. I may be old fashioned (I have been using the Internet since about 1982), but I really think everyone should have their own web site and/or blog to post their own stuff on.
themeekforgotpw 11y ago
This is tangentially related to the same general topic, so I hope it is welcomed here. Methods for state censorship are making their way onto content providers online. For example, in the United States we have a system across Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and other sites whereby links will be blocked from publication. A recent academic publication "Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities" (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.00680v1.pdf http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.00680v1.pdf) has been reported as a boon for 'anti-troll' applications of the internet - though it finds its funding from counter-propaganda funding from the US and NATO. The West more generally will cry out when nations block Western content, ideas, or US funded Civil Society groups - but are fine themselves censoring anti-Western ideas and narratives even when they are not directly part of a mis- or dis-information campaign. Those who have lived both inside and outside the United States are, for the most part, well aware that Americans live inside of an information bubble of American narrative - and that Americans (like every other citizen on Earth) is subject to censorship and to propaganda. The Internet, by a series of laws and technical solutions, is today in the process of being enveloped into this system. I lived through the era where the Internet was free, and miss it. I fear tomorrow's Internet, and the Internet of the day after; I fear that it will continue - and all signs currently point this direction - down a narrowing corridor until it, too, becomes unashamedly part of the same bubble.

120 points by suprgeek 11y ago

Can OP sue 4chan?

The headline is pretty misleading. The ECHR decided that it's not a breach of european rights if a member countries law stipulates a liability for a commercial provider. For example german law still requires that the provider is notified before any liability takes effect. So the provider is liable to remove offending content in a reasonable time after being notified, and this decision doesn't change anything. For german readers a well written summary http://www.internet-law.de/2015/06/forenbetreiber-haftet-fuer-beleidigungen-der-nutzer-oder-doch-nicht.html http://www.internet-law.de/2015/06/forenbetreiber-haftet-fue...

zerocrates 11y ago
The article does eventually get around to being a little more levelheaded than its headline: "Today's decision doesn't have any direct legal effect. It simply finds that Estonia's laws on site liability aren't incompatible with the ECHR. It doesn't directly require any change in national or EU law. Indirectly, however, it may be influential in further development of the law in a way which undermines freedom of expression. As a decision of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR it will be given weight by other courts and by legislative bodies." Interestingly, US law is basically the exact opposite in this area and is very protective of website operators and service providers, in a way that it's not in other areas like copyright. The article notes there is (or can be) a DMCA-style notice-and-takedown system for defamation in Europe, but the surviving parts of the Communications Decency Act in the US really insulate websites from having to do much of anything at all about information their users provide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
- Xylakant 11y ago
  The system is not exactly DCMA-style as you don't have to first take down the content and the provider can actually fight the decision on his own - which actually happens from time to time. Small providers and private persons obviously still suffer since they have a hard time defending but I seriously can't think of a better alternative. There are morons on the internet and there need to be ways to enforce a takedown for hate speech IMHO.
  - maxlybbert 11y ago
    > There are morons on the internet and there need to be ways to enforce a takedown for hate speech Why? I understand that if I run a blog I may not want to be associated with some comments people leave, so I have an incentive to police the comment section. But why should I be required to remove comments that other people may find offensive? Even comments that can only be taken as offensive? First, if people feel a need to advertise ignorance, intolerance, immaturity, etc. I see no reason to keep them from doing so. It makes life a lot easier for the rest of us when we need to determine who to associate with. Second, in the US, the accepted solution for speech you disagree with is more speech, not less. Don't silence your enemies; destroy their arguments. Show how they're immature, intolerant, ignorant, etc. I prefer to win the debate by having the better argument instead of by silencing critics.
    - marak830 11y ago
      This, im tired of having to worry if some speech will upset someone. HN has a fairly decent system of hiding oncw downvotes, arstechnica does as well. Maybe its time some people began acting like adults, and engaging in debate, or even just ignoring it completly. Someone called your company shit? So freaking what. Your a company, not a holy relic, suck it up and keep going, it wont matter in 3 minutes.
      - icebraining 11y ago
        The discussion was about hate speech; calling some company shit is not hate speech under any legislation I know of. Let's not fall into arguing against strawmen.
fweespeech 11y ago
Yeah but requiring a notice-and-takedown approach is quite reasonable. This is the equivalent of all EU countries being legally allowed to ban free speech on the Internet at a national level, if desired. Yeah, its not "changing anything" but its tantamount to admitting that Estonia is not a functioning democracy that respects fundamental human rights like free speech....and that it is OKAY for the EU.
- arrrg 11y ago
  The zeal with which some people view free speech is really quite adorable. I don’t think it’s really so important. (It is important, sure, just not that important. And limiting free speech is certain a-ok with me, within limits.)
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    Very well. Stop posting completely on HN because HN is now liable even if it takes down hate speech within 24 hours of notification if it was run by an Estonian and/or had connections to Estonia [say via e-Residency]. Its cute how people are ready to sell other groups of people down the river without accepting the broader implications.
  - mikerichards 11y ago
    That's a horrible, immoral ideology you have there, but I'll defend your right to spew it.
- Xylakant 11y ago
  You're pretty harsh with your judgement. The decision stipulates that a fine of 320 EUR for a large commercial provider in a case where it took weeks to take down extreme occurrences of hate speech does not violate fundamental human rights. The relevant quote from the judgement: 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, having regard to the margin of appreciation afforded to the respondent State.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

istvan__ 11y ago

RIP free speech. This is basically saying that highways are responsible for the damage bad drivers cause.

jimmaswell 11y ago
It's an area where European laws fall extremely short
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Maybe this is just my ignorant American self talking, but the speech laws in Europe seem just plain backwards.. decisions like this, the libel laws...
  - cm3 11y ago
    In the US you can stand on the street and deny the holocaust or preach hate against some part of the population and it's covered by free speech, isn't it? I think everybody should be allowed to say whatever they like even if it's hate speech but then again laws are in place to exclude hate speech. I hope that if any lunatic is allowed to say what they like we have to face them and evolve as societies but I may be too naive in expecting people to adapt to that. The rationale for disallowing certain speech is supposedly to limit offending people or luring the gullible into their hate mindset. However even with limited free speech hate mongerers on all continents manage to impress the young and ship them to ISIS-land. Would it be best if there's total free speech and we'd have to adapt and learn to ignore "trolls" like on the internet? Or are the lawmakers right in limiting free speech? At least in the case of libel I'm of the opinion that you should just shrug off what someone says about you. Haters will be everywhere. I mean we all know where contesting someone's public opinion of him got Mr Wylde in ye olde England. Had he listened to his friends and ignored the accusations he might have lived longer. Libel is often misused like the patent system and not used for its original intention. That might show we better get rid of libel as well while at it. Many people say bad things about me or you and I want more to do it so that I can grow a thicker skin. Opinions welcome as I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

ddebernardy 11y ago

No surprises here. In France, this has been the case for a long time btw: when you allow comments on your publication (print or web) you basically owe them and are responsible and liable for them. Prior jurisprudence includes Yahoo selling Nazi artifacts and getting fined for it. [1] If some nut job writes crap on your site you're basically in charge of monitoring and removing it. And in most of Europe, some things are simply off boundaries and not subjected to free speech - in contrast with the US. In particular hate speech. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Nadya 11y ago

I commented on this topic in another HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9727988 The important part, in my eyes, is in my last response to dragonwriter, which I will repeat here. >You just no longer have to worry about the website who you've sued successfully in your local courts taking its offense at having being found liable to the ECHR. So it has precisely zero effect on Britain beyond not blocking certain types of liability that the British government might create through its own laws. As explained near the end of the article: >As a consequence, active intermediaries and blog operators will have considerable incentives to discontinue offering a comments feature, and the fear of liability may lead to additional self-censorship by operators. This is an invitation to self-censorship at its worst. The statues under the United Kingdom Hate Speech laws means people can sue in courts for comments containing hate speech and the ECHR now has a precedent to rule in their favor and hold the intermediate party liable for said comments. The result? Nobody wants to be held liable, so they shut down their comment sections. That's bad for free speech and is a side-entry form of censorship. Not direct from the state, but implied and enforced by the state on private entities. //end self quote Although the courts probably wouldn't hear it - wouldn't ISIS or criticisms of extremist readings/interpretations of the Qur'an be protected from hate speech under the U.K's current statutes? Just want to make sure I'm understanding the U.K's hate speech laws properly.

tfgg 11y ago
I went to an interesting seminar on UK defamation law as it relates to the UK, given by an experienced barrister. He didn't mention much about hate speech, so I don't know if it's relevant. Notes and slides from the seminar are here: http://francisdavey.github.io/defamation/ http://francisdavey.github.io/defamation/ and I highly recommend reading them, very interesting! It basically looks like a UK operator now has a fair amount of protection if they take reasonable actions.
- Nadya 11y ago
  Under slide 21 - it seems (unless I am misreading) "honest opinion" is defensible. So if I call someone a shithead and hold that as my true opinion, it is defensible. But if I call someone a shithead as a matter-of-fact, it isn't. (replace shithead with most any slander: racist, pedophile, sexist) Slide 32 made me laugh. Slide 35 seems unreasonable. What if I went on vacation for a week? I only have 48 hours to operate in? So to legally cover my ass, I would have to hire someone to moderate the comment section of my blog while I went on a honeymoon? While this may be an excuse accepted by the court outside the letter-of-the-law (humans are a bit more... human in application of the law), the letter-of-the-law would hold me liable. There seems to be a loophole that isn't given thought. What if the original comment presupposes the removal and affirms that - "in such a case that a claim is made to remove this comment, my response is that this comment must be retained." and gives their name and address? Furthermore - wouldn't that put the commentator in potential harm/danger of their life (in an extreme scenario)? That hardly seems reasonable and only encourages them to not respond and have the comment removed. Which is harmful for free speech. Thanks for the slides. Informative although still a bit scary.

mark_l_watson 11y ago

Except for material that literally breaks the law, I tend to favor unfiltered free speech. One exception: sometimes people leave comments on my blog that are not about my post, but rather, links to their products, services, etc. I don't accept those. I don't feel like I need to support other people's free speech in these cases, on my blog. I may be old fashioned (I have been using the Internet since about 1982), but I really think everyone should have their own web site and/or blog to post their own stuff on.

themeekforgotpw 11y ago

This is tangentially related to the same general topic, so I hope it is welcomed here. Methods for state censorship are making their way onto content providers online. For example, in the United States we have a system across Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and other sites whereby links will be blocked from publication. A recent academic publication "Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities" (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.00680v1.pdf http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.00680v1.pdf) has been reported as a boon for 'anti-troll' applications of the internet - though it finds its funding from counter-propaganda funding from the US and NATO. The West more generally will cry out when nations block Western content, ideas, or US funded Civil Society groups - but are fine themselves censoring anti-Western ideas and narratives even when they are not directly part of a mis- or dis-information campaign. Those who have lived both inside and outside the United States are, for the most part, well aware that Americans live inside of an information bubble of American narrative - and that Americans (like every other citizen on Earth) is subject to censorship and to propaganda. The Internet, by a series of laws and technical solutions, is today in the process of being enveloped into this system. I lived through the era where the Internet was free, and miss it. I fear tomorrow's Internet, and the Internet of the day after; I fear that it will continue - and all signs currently point this direction - down a narrowing corridor until it, too, becomes unashamedly part of the same bubble.