European Court: Websites Are Responsible For Users' Comments 401
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."
Dear EU Courts, (Score:2, Insightful)
Suck it.
- An American Enjoying Their Freedom of Speech
Re:Dear EU Courts, (Score:5, Insightful)
- An American Enjoying Their Freedom of Speech
Well, for as long as even the illusion of 'free speech' lasts, with things like TPP, SOPA, PIPA, and whatever other secret treaties are waiting in the wings for a distraction to provide the right opportunity to sneak a 'yea' vote in.
Strat
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That seems like a stretch
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You are currently in your assigned free-speech zone, aren't you? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone)
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Why are you posting as AC if you have true freedom of speech?
Re:Dear EU Courts, (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there are some idiots that might not like what you say and mistake their dislike for it to being entitled to do nasty things to you for voicing your opinion. Having the choice to posting as AC promotes freedom of expression by permitting free speech in situations that might otherwise inhibit or prohibit it.
Just look at what happens in countries where freedom of speech is not a given. Journalists having to work under cover, gambling their lives just to get the truth out there because those in power would rather silence them. Anonymity matters.
Having the option to posting as AC doesn't make your opinion invalid - though you're more likely to surround yourself with assholes that way, and make yourself less likely to be heard. But some messages are important enough that even then they're worth voicing.
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What's the difference between posting as AC or using a random nickname?
You leave a history with that nickname. The longer the history is, the more chances you will have of leaving something identifiable. Idiom usage and sentence construction at first, but as months turn to years, chances grow that you start mentioning enough things about the place where you live to narrow things down to a geographic location. And if you mention specific events or things that only you or a few others know, you're really setting yourself up for trouble.
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Good thing Slashdot isn't in the EU (Score:5, Funny)
I quite like the freedom to swear up a fucking storm and make unpleasant comments.
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Re:Good thing Slashdot isn't in the EU (Score:5, Informative)
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?
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You should see the 'preening' that goes on in the Discus forums. The EU would be pleased
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You should see the 'preening' that goes on in the Discus forums. The EU would be pleased
You - I linked to one of the myriad of studies that display the well-known inverse correlation between IQ and religious conviction. No text, just the link, and it was deleted in about 8 hours :-)
Websites tend to like disqus discussions - by removing all the dissenting voice they can present a "this is what the general readers think" picture which might only be a minority view of the actual readers.
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This isn't the /. of old. GNAA posts and the like are outright deleted with some regularity. See that little flag on each comment? Yeah.
Re:Good thing Slashdot isn't in the EU (Score:5, Informative)
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 [slashdot.org] 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.
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You're full of shit about AC posts disappearing. They DO NOT DISAPPEAR. The lowest a post can go is -1, which you should know if you've been modding.
samzenpus posted in this very article [slashdot.org] about how nothing is regularly deleted. Only in one particular instance have comments ever been removed and that was due to legal threat for obvious copyright infringement.
Again, you're full of shit.
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... and parent's post is exactly why websites need to proactively publish comments, instead of being retroactive, or doing nothing at all.
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IOW, Slashdot now has its very own Golden Dawn operative. Isn't that special.
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Isn't that special.
Yes, it is. The ability to speak with people of different viewpoints, and understand them, has prevented wars in the past. Getting rid of someone because you don't like what they say is foolhardy.
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What on earth does freedom of speech have to do with my political persuasions? For the record, I'm not a Republican. I'm not registered to any party, nor have I ever been. I think party/machine politics are bullshit.
You think some awfully weird things on very little evidence.
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Let's say that Slashdot is liable for facilitating my uncouth comments. How exactly would that make me not liable in such a situation?
Also, the right to offend is more important than the right to not be offended. Now get the fuck off my lawn.
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there is no "right" to not be offended. Anywhere. Sure, there are Statutes that seek to punish anti-semitism and the ilk, but there is not much in the way of $random_person saying what the fuck they like on whatever forum they want, with the exception of House Rules which have no weight in Law particularly when they directly infringe on individual rights of freedom of expression.
Re:Good thing Slashdot isn't in the EU (Score:4, Interesting)
Still comments need to be separated in the three distinct classes of comment, threats, intent to deceive for gain and opinions.
The claim that forums can monitor all comments is intent by that court in the most corrupt fashion imaginable to silence all forums that can not 'AFFORD' full time comment regulators to read and evaluate every comment, this with the express intent of purposefully creating a price barrier for commenting.
This to shut down all public forums in favour of empty propaganada forums that just pretend to be public as they are fully funded with the express intent of censoring all comments that do not adhere to corporate message. The European court Human Rights actively working to deny the right of 'FREE' speech and ensure only 'PAID' speech is allowed on public media channels, because factually it needs to be 'PAID' in order to be professionally moderated.
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Good thing? If Slashdot is not responsible for your comments then you're the one risking a lawsuit if someone is offended.
If people are prone to getting offended by what they see, boy are they looking at the WRONG Internet.
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It's far from "unrelated" to the EU.
After the accession to the Treaty of Amsterdam in 2004 (after a popular referendum in 2003), Estonia was obliged to be a member in good standing of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the court of which (ECtHR) is only nominally independent of the European Union.
The ECtHR and ECHR are administered by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE, see below), which is dominated by EU member-states and in which since the Treaty of Lisbon the EU's ins
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The short version: (Score:2)
Wilkommen am viertel Reich.
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bullets are expensive, yanno?
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hah... I meant viertes Reich. Those keys are so damn close together...
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
The European Court of Human Rights is not actually an EU institution, regardless of the similarities in naming. It's more like a court that countries submit to
voluntarily. I saw quite an interesting presentation about it from some human rights lawyers a year or two ago. Apparently it does some good work, especially in addressing more run-of-the-mill rights violations in former Soviet bloc countries.
Regardless, this is now the second time that some EU court has fucked up extremely basic internet related rulings. First there was the idiotic "right to be forgotten" ruling that makes it effectively impossible for anyone to make a search engine unless they have a vast human army of lawyers and money for lawsuits. Now they want to make websites responsible for everyone who comments on them? Like someone who runs a party should be responsible for anything anyone says whilst there?
It's quite clear that the judges at this place must either be interpreting extremely vague and piss poor laws, or have never used the internet, or both.
At the moment the Tory government in the UK is wanting to pull out of the ECHR, partly because it keeps blocking deportation of various 'undesirables' on the grounds of their right to a family life. They want to replace it with a British-specific bill of human rights. I don't really trust the Tories on this matter, their track record of upholding civil liberties is pretty terrible lately, but every time the ECHR produces a disastrous ruling like this I think - you know, maybe there's something in it.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
See my comment here: http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... [slashdot.org]
Roughly and in terms of English law, the ECtHR ruling upheld the Estonian Supreme Court's ruling (and that of several Estonian courts) that "L" was defamed, and that Delfi AS exacerbated the defamation by its actions, incurring a small liability for damages. Delfi admits there was the equivalent of defamation in the comments and that they were fairly treated in the Estonian court of first instance, in terms of procedure. Its argument that the Estonian law on defamation is in conflict with the ECHR has been rejected by almost everyone who has heard the case. I'd be strongly surprised if their advocates at every stage had not suggested to them that they did not have clean enough hands in the matter to pursue it through the courts with hope of success.
The ruling is not a disaster, IMHO. It tries to strike a balance for protecting the general rights of freedom of communication with the general protections from lies that are calculated to injure the reputation (and/or income and/or quiet enjoyment of life without fear), and to make striking such balances in more local courts and legislatures easier.
In brutal terms, the quantum of damages assessed by the court of first instance against Delfi was very small -- a mere slap on the wrist -- and the ECtHR took that tiny figure into account in considering the reasonabless of the law and its application. Other courts should too. Nobody went to prison, lost their business, or the like. Delfi consequently should pay costs in the appeal -- they insisted on their right to have their day in court on a small matter, and lost.
Finally, since you ask in another comment below, this would not in any way prevent someone assessed a much more severe quantum of damages (or fines, incarceration or other punitive measures) even in similar circumstances from pursuing relief through the courts, including the ECtHR. Such a person could indeed point to this case in the first instance and likely achieve a better outcome than they would have absent this decision. That's why I say it's not a disaster, not even for free speech enthusiasts. Indeed, there are some newspaper publishers in England who likely will be wishing this ruling had been made before being pressured into a deal with the late coalition government on similar matters.
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There is no EU institutions involved anywhere in the story. The human rights court is not an EU court. It has many more members and intervenes less.
Beneficial For Trolls? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I wonder what effect it would have had in recent cases where posters were held liable for making threats towards sitting judiciary
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No, it will simply mean that political speech in Europe reverts to what it has always been: something approved by the state and engaged in mostly by statist academics, politicians, and media personalities.
Newspapers may go back to publishing just selected "letters from their readers" on their web sites, and blogs may disappear entirely. Well, except for the US and a few other places, where the new European fascists can't enforce their laws.
Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
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?
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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.
And what? You consider that a good thing? The only problem with this issue is the lack of resistance. We need to make the internet absolutely indelible, by whatever means technically available.
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When a court orders you to take down defamatory comments, then yes. It is a good thing to be held accountable to take it down.
I'm quite far on the individual liberties side of the spectrum, but if a comment is basically slander then I don't see why it shouldn't be able to be removed in a court of law.
The problem is if companies have inroads into fast tracking removals (such as 3 strikes rules on Youtube or DMCA requests). That's where the real nasty stuff starts happening.
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if a comment is basically slander then I don't see why it shouldn't be able to be removed in a court of law.
This is your problem, you don't understand why censorship is bad.
Here is what the US supreme court says on the matter:
If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression.
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It's an emergency, I'm being offended. Repression is now justified.
I'm kidding, but frankly when isn't there a state of emergency? There are wars on terror and drugs going on permanently, war seems to be an emergency.
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but frankly when isn't there a state of emergency?
It's a interesting question. SCOTUS defines 'emergency' for the purposes of speech very narrowly. As with anything legal, there is somewhat of a grey area, and the definition has changed over time.
For a while, if speech presented a clear and present danger [wikipedia.org], it counted as an emergency.
Later, the court found that meaning of 'emergency' too abusable, and limited it further. Currently there must be a threat of imminent lawless action [wikipedia.org]. If I am telling a crowd to go burn down a store, and the crowd seems lik
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know where you are, but in the US, the court case Zeran v. America Online provides that websites are not responsible for comments, even if they are notified of defamatory material and neglect to remove it. You can read the relevant law here [cornell.edu].
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
The ruling is more subtle than that. It states that the Estonian law which requires the site to pro-actively monitor the comments is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. It doesn't apply to the whole of Europe, just Estonia and countries which have similar laws. I don't know how many that is, but for example in the UK there is no such liability and reactive moderation is fine.
What is needed now is a new EU directive clarifying this issue and harmonizing the rules for the whole of Europe, which would require Estonia to change its local laws to comply. It's not the huge deal some media outlets are making it out to be, at least not for media outside of Estonia.
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From the ruling:
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 âoefailed to remove the comments
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Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
"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."
No. RTFJ(udgment), under the chapter "FACTS".
The comments were removed the day the complaint came in, at which time the comments had been online for 6 weeks. This happened in 2006, by the way. The website had a mechanism for users to flag comments; apparently the complaining party had not used that and demanded monetary compensation at the first contact.
The judgment is surprisingly legible, though rather long. Much better than the average EULA. I didnn't read past the description of initial events. I'm sure that it also explains why this particular website owner was held responsible.
Here is why Europe has no Silicon Valley (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
So, in your opinion, all relevant innovation in hi tech is related to social networks (that may in turn be vulnerable to defamation lawsuits)? What a dystopian view.
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And what country would you trust to respect your privacy? China? Russia? Obviously not anywhere in the EU.
That's his point (or her point, I don't know)......the GP was saying that if a country wanted to get a competitive advantage in technology, here are some things they could fix; and that so far, the US is best in those points, which is why (one reason why) it is winning in technology.
In unrelated news... (Score:4, Insightful)
... 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.
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Uh, you know this is a local Estonian law, right? The ruling is basically that their local law is compatible with European human rights. All it means is that individual European countries can pass laws like this and they won't be struck down under current human rights rules, but they may still be incompatible with other rules such as EU rules on telecommunications.
It's actually a shame they didn't appeal under telecoms rules because they would have won. For some legal reason I don't really understand (I'm n
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If the site is anonymous or held by a shell company than what are they going to do? Shake their dicks at Taiwan and demand they turn over the name of the owner of the site that said the prime minister's topee looks like a dead rat?
The whole thing is stupid. The EU and many EU nations have been trying to strong arm various internet companies... mostly US companies to bow to European codes even the intertional or US version of the stie. France I believe was demanding that google remove search results from the
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And Spain had an embarrassing encounter with Google News where google just terminated the service in Spain rather than comply and it created such a political backlash that the Spanish government had to backtrack.
The government still hasn't backtracked. You still can't get to Google News from Spain.
Also, if you had your Google News page set to "Spanish -Spain" in the language menu, then there you've been blocked from using google news, and there is no way I know of to change that, even if you don't live in Spain. Super annoying.
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They're going to crack. By some estimates the traffic for the Spanish sites that lobbied for the change in law dropped by about 15 percent because of that.
That's a lot. Perhaps they're taking their time, perhaps they're seeing if things return to normal at some point... maybe there is bureaucratic thing where they have to wait for the next meeting or something... possibly they're trying to save face.
But 15 percent is a knee to the groin.
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Bizarro world (Score:3)
In the soon to occur dystopian future, 4chan will become the last beacon of light for freethinking individuals everywhere. God help us all.
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The fact you're defending cesspits like 4chat is disgusting.
To see anybody defend censorship is much more so. It is truly offensive.
Once again (Score:5, Interesting)
"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'
moderator censorship war! (Score:2)
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!
There is a balance between article 8 and 10 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
Yes it does. The website took down the comments as soon as the 'victim' complained about them. He wanted money for damages because the website didn't take them down before someone complained about them. The only way to do that would be to moderate all comments.
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Yes it does. The website took down the comments as soon as the 'victim' complained about them.
The ruling clearly states otherwise:
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.
(Emphasis is mine)
Note, the opinion of the court specifically says that they did not rule on the whether or not the website could be liable for not moderating upfront, and concern themselves with the case where removal had been requested.
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The only way they could have removed them before the complaints were made was by moderating upfront.
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You misunderstood the ruling. The comments were taken down as soon as the website owners were notified. The comments were on the website six weeks before anyone complained about them.
The only way they could have removed them before the complaints were made was by moderating upfront.
No, You misunderstand the ruling:
Estonian law means that the website publisher can be liable for comments by their users. Effectively to comply with Estonian law, the websites are required to proactively monitor comments and remo
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Remained on the new ports for six weeks after... what? After the post was made, or after the complaint about the post was made?
1. Post is made
2. Six weeks later, guy complains
3. Same day as complaint, company removes comment
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That's rather a contradiction in terms, isn't it. Refusing to take down illegal speech is not a free speech violation. How can you have both free speech and illegal speech simultaneously?
I think this case sums up one of the most glaring problems with the ECHR which is obvious the moment you read the document they are interpreting. This list of rights is nothing like the American Bill of Rights. The
Re:There is a balance between article 8 and 10 (Score:4, Informative)
"What kind of idiots actually write such things?"
In most of your particular extracts, it was mainly the administrators of the Marshall Plan, namely Americans and British politicians, and principally Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe MP (as he then was) taking inspiration from the work of John Peters Humphrey.
Codification was considered a good idea to avoid relitigation of common exceptions and strikings-of-balance, and to avoid imposing the need to reference foreign case law on the non-common-law countries that would agree to the document. Conflicts arose as well because some well-organized political party groupings (Christian Democrats in particular) threatened to slow ratification in a number of states simultaneously.
I think the vast majority of the people of Estonia would disagree with your assessment of the ECHR; it was a live issue in their accession referendum and is far better than the Soviet equivalent in every practical way.
Likewise, at the time it was written, Nazi laws were still on the books in the various sectors of Germany, and the legal system was a mess in all the different occupied sectors. Getting it working in *all* the sectors of occupied Germany (and Austria), including the Soviet sector was an explicit goal of the convention, and it actually succeeded in that respect for about a decade.
Finally, the document is a live one, and PACE proposes changes to clarify conflicts, to strengthen individual rights (that's the main theme) and subsidiarity, and so forth. PACE is made up of parliamentarians from each of the COE's member-states, meaning it's mostly EU parliamentarians, and since so few of their constituents engage with them on PACE, a letter written to one in an arbitrary EU member-state is likely to be looked at seriously. Maybe you could put your questions to one of them, or make some suggestions for improvement? "Just scrap it" is something they hear a lot more often from non-politicians than "fix it like this, and I'd be happier".
Seems (Score:2)
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.
Hopefulle responsible for their ads too (Score:2)
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.
Interresting point of view (Score:2)
Hmmm, that's an interresting point of view, european court.
Do you have a website where I may comment on this?
The ruling is pretty scary (IANAL) (Score:2)
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 [.]
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Indeed, this is straight up shock scaremongering. Original article itself in fact goes to state:
T J McIntyre, who is a lecturer in law and Chairman of Digital Rights Ireland, the lead organisation that won an important victory against EU data retention in the Court of Justice of the European Union last year, explained where things now stand. "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 req
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No problemo. You can find my IP address here: https://torstatus.blutmagie.de... [blutmagie.de]
Re:Well this is the end of YouTube... (Score:5, Insightful)
and that is what the Republicans want.
You know what is funny, is every single time somebody puts in the word Republican, the word Democrat works just as well.
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So now we have invented the Ministry of Truth.
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Quick - define "hate speech" in a completely objective way.
Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.
Just because hate is a subjective emotion doesn't mean that you can't have a legal definition of something.
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Quick - define "hate speech" in a completely objective way.
Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.
And is that a _perceived_ attack or an _intended_ attack, and how do you tell ? Physical attacks are identified by their effects or the effects they would have had if successful (e.g. shooting at someone and missing). Speech attacks are defined... how ?
Is accurate factual speech an "attack" or does it have to be lies ? Is reading from religious holy books an attack, or would it rather be hate speech on religious grounds to criticise someone preaching from their holy book ? Could you be arrested for quot
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Re:SLAPP? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maybe, but there's a lot less gunning down of civilians by the police in Europe compared to the U.S. (I don't know whether that's down to less racism or less guns or some other socio-political difference).
I think you really need to go to the previous century, say the late 1930's to the mid 40's.Think about some things that happened then. Then come back and tell us about this vaunted European superiority over teh evulz 'murricans.
And that isn't the only example. It seems y'all like to go on killing rampages against each other every so often. Would you like them listed?
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Maybe, but there's a lot less gunning down of civilians by the police in Europe compared to the U.S. (I don't know whether that's down to less racism or less guns or some other socio-political difference).
It isn't due to less racism for certain. It is due to less racial diversity at the local level. Someone forgets about a multi-million person racial/ethnic purge that occurred in Europe 70-80 years ago. Between the people killed and the ones who fled, the racial diversity in all of continental Europe was swept away. Researchers in Havard released a map a few years ago showing the racial diversity of different nations. It can be found on the following link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/ [washingtonpost.com]
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Maybe, but there's a lot less gunning down of civilians by the police in Europe compared to the U.S. (I don't know whether that's down to less racism or less guns or some other socio-political difference).
Don't worry, you'll be catching up fast, and the report of it will be considered illegal hate speech. Europe has enough drug and human trafficking to be approaching a tipping-point. With increased immigration, European Country's historical advantage of cultural homogeneity will turn into a liability and you'll be wrestling with the same problems as the US.
Re:SLAPP? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-kill-citizens-70-times-rate-first-world-nations/ [thefreetho...roject.com]
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/armed-police/ [economist.com]
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-do-us-police-kill-so-many-people-2014-8/ [businessinsider.com]
http://mic.com/articles/105036/here-s-the-shocking-tally-of-how-many-americans-die-from-police-shootings/ [mic.com]
Re:SLAPP? (Score:5, Informative)
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-... [theguardian.com]
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.
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Yes, and Russia is a country that spans two continents, Europe and Asia. Moscow happens to be in Europe. It's not a difficult concept to grasp.
I'm not arguing that the Guardian numbers are wrong (they seem pretty plausible to me), I'm pointing out that you don't even understand the data if you believe that those numbers represent facts. My point is about your ign
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how do we defeat or circumvent this?
Host your own website.
Something I've noticed recently are a surprising number of people willing to censor, or otherwise punish, those they disagree with. I'm not sure what to think of this trend.
Slashdot does it right.......even comments about host files stay around if you want to browse that low.
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So, the only relevant question to me is, how do we defeat or circumvent this?
Shutdown Facebook in those countries. Wait for something to happen a few hours later when Parliament is on fire.
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No. The ruling expressively said that it only applies to this specific case.
And the ruling does NOT say that you have to moderate every post. Only that if you have an option for users to report offensive content and if you are known to moderate comments on your own (as this website did) then you can be expected to do it fast.
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1. the ruling is about comments on news articles, not discuss boards.
Am I commenting on a news article or a discussion board?
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If a person considers a site to be bad - stop swimming in that sewer.
What a nice and pious sentiment; the problem is that sometimes the sewer bursts and we all get covered in shit. When that happens, who is responsible for the repairs, and who is to blame for the epidemics that follow? The millions of people who used the sewer to take a dump, or the company providing the service?
I think this is about freedom under responsibility; the internet company that provides the service makes money out of it, and just as other companies are responsible for the harmful effects of their
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
it's not illegal to say that homeopathy is bogus, English law might seek to punish such utterances but it does NOT outlaw saying it.
By the way, contrary to the example you gave, the practice of homeopathy in the UK is, in fact, illegal, in light of the fact that there is no evidence to claims of efficacy and the fact that the Advertising Standards Agency has pulled the industry on its claims of same and basically said that they're falsely advertising (tantamount to fraud). Ergo, it's not defamation to say t
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English law might seek to punish such utterances but it does NOT outlaw saying it.
I see. So it is legal to say it, but the legal system will punish you for doing so [wikipedia.org].
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precisely. :)
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To give further example, I am absolutely free to say that Scientology is a scam. I can say that in light of the fact that no claims that Scientology has made have ever been proven. Scientology might try to sue me under libel laws BUT they would have no case considering that I'm merely commenting on the lack of evidence to support their claims (such as the efficacy of the Hubbard E-Meter), which they would have to prove for them to have a case against me. I've made my case by stating that Scientology has not
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ECHR rulings aren't worth the ink they're printed with. Per Lord Neuberger, ‘The British and Europe’ (Cambridge Freshfields Annual Law Lecture 2014,12 February 2014) and Wall LJ, in Re: H [2010] EWCA Civ 6 (Addendum to Judgement) (Unreported), and pretty much every British national rag on 3 October 2014 who ran the headline that Cameron on the advice of Grayling is to sever ties with the ECtHR by ditching the HRA altogether - which also is not worth the ink it's printed with because it comes wit