A comment on Delfi SA v Estonia

Online reader comments are "a vital form of accountability," says @ggreenwald, describing how @the_intercept works: http://t.co/mr5uMWbBSd
— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) March 3, 2014

[Olivia O'Kane (@OliviaOKane1) earlier looked at the law in Delfi AS v Estonia here] 

Under the judgement (October 10 2013) handed down by Europe's Chamber of the First Section, Delfi and other online news sites are responsible for anonymous comments. This was a decision to uphold the Estonian court. The Court held that Delfi, one of Estonia’s main news websites, was liable for defamatory comments from its users. This was in spite of the fact that Delfi had taken down the comments as soon as they had been notified of them. 

In the Delfi AS v Estonia case the Court held that there had been no violation of Article 10. It found that the finding of liability by the Estonian courts was a justified and proportionate restriction on the portal’s right to freedom of expression, in particular, because: the comments were highly offensive; the portal failed to prevent them from becoming public, profited from their existence, but allowed their authors to remain anonymous; and, the fine imposed by the Estonian courts was not excessive.

Wall Street Journal - The UK's Doublespeak on Internet Freedoms

Ben Rooney in the Wall Street Journal here, called up the UK for government for its contradictory remarks on Internet freedoms. Ben Rooney made a first observation: 

"Here are two conflicting opinions about Internet censorship. Can you guess which government said which? You can chose from the following: China, the U.S., and the U.K. First: Democratic governments must resist the calls to censor a wide range of content just because they or others find it offensive or objectionable. Second: Put simply, there needs to be a list of terms—a blacklist—which offer up no direct search returns.

He then answered his rhetorical question: 

"It is a trick question. The U.K. government said both. The first was by Foreign Secretary William Hague, speaking at the Budapest Conference on Cyberspace in October 2012. The second was by Prime Minister David Cameron in July 2013 at a U.K. children’s charity event."