NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

law and there is no law in Estonia imposing such an obligation on Delfi. 882 In addition, the applicant reminded the Court that it applied systems combating defamatory comments of users and removed inappropriate posts immediately upon notice. On, 16 June 2015, the Court’s Grand Chamber issued the judgment of in the case of Delfi v. Estonia . 883 The Court ruled that given “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. Therefore, the measure did not constitute a disproportionate restriction on the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression.” 884 The reflections on the judgment in the Delfi case suggest two possible solutions: either to exercise general monitoring of all the comments or to refuse anonymity to users so that the victim of offensive commentaries is able to sue the author of the content directly. 885 In view of the very nature of the Internet, it is virtually impossible to exercise total control of the flow of messages. 886 The general monitoring of all the messages will require an army of moderators. Most probably, the easier and more suitable solution is the introduction of better automatic filtering systems with strong control over indecent words. However, there is a risk that such a system will bring more harm than good. One example can be seen in the United States, when the Pennsylvania authorities enacted a bill obliging Internet service providers to disable access to child pornography items. To comply with the act, the providers had to use strong filtering systems. The results of the introduction of these filtering systems showed that 376 web sites containing child pornography were suppressed, but at the same time, the filtering resulted in the suppression of 1,190,000 web sites, which did not contain child pornography. 887 In view of these results, on 10 September 2004, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in the case of Centre for Democracy and Technology v Pappert , 888 declared that this statute of Pennsylvania 885 TYMOFEYEVA, Alla. Anonymity on the Internet: Necessity or Danger? Reflections on Certain Aspects of the Delfi Case. In International and Internal Mechanisms of Fundamental Rights Effectiveness . Czech Brazilian monograph. RWW Science and NewMedia Passau-Berlin-Prague, 2015, pages 262-277. 886 ANGELOPOULOS, C. Beyond the safe harbours: harmonising substantive intermediary liability for copyright infringement in Europe . Intellectual Property Quarterly. I.P.Q. 2013, 3, 253-274, p. 273. 887 KLEINSCHMIDT, B. An International Comparison of ISP’s Liabilities for Unlawful Third Party Content . International Journal of Law and Information Technology Vol. 18 No. 4, p. 342. 888 Centre for Democracy and Technology v Pappert . The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. URL: https://cdt.org/files/speech/pennwebblock/20040915highlights.pdf. 882 Speech of Villu Otsmann, a representative of the applicant. 883 Delfi AS [GC], cited above. 884 Ibid. , § 162.

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