Hi all,
this is a couple weeks old news, I haven't had time to post it sooner.
The Constitutional Court (more or less the Hungarian equivalent of the Supreme Court) has decided [1] (upholding the three decisions made by lower-level courts) that internet providers can be held responsible for libelous comments on a website they provide, even if there was no moderation or other process through which they could have learned of the comments beforehand, and even if they removed the comments as soon as they were made aware.
News reports with more details: http://budapesttimes.hu/2014/06/22/court-decision-a-blow-to-internet-comment... http://budapestbeacon.com/featured-articles/constitutional-court-limits-free...
[1] Case IV/5/2013, Examination of constitutional complaint regarding the right to freedom of expression http://public.mkab.hu/dev/dontesek.nsf/0/4E4D071867671629C1257B0C00212E7F?Op...
Thanks, Tisza, for the update! So I guess this cements it then? Any chance anybody can change the rule in Hungary from now on?
Dimi
2014-06-29 20:32 GMT+02:00 Tisza Gergő gtisza@gmail.com:
Hi all,
this is a couple weeks old news, I haven't had time to post it sooner.
The Constitutional Court (more or less the Hungarian equivalent of the Supreme Court) has decided [1] (upholding the three decisions made by lower-level courts) that internet providers can be held responsible for libelous comments on a website they provide, even if there was no moderation or other process through which they could have learned of the comments beforehand, and even if they removed the comments as soon as they were made aware.
News reports with more details:
http://budapesttimes.hu/2014/06/22/court-decision-a-blow-to-internet-comment...
http://budapestbeacon.com/featured-articles/constitutional-court-limits-free...
[1] Case IV/5/2013, Examination of constitutional complaint regarding the right to freedom of expression
http://public.mkab.hu/dev/dontesek.nsf/0/4E4D071867671629C1257B0C00212E7F?Op...
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On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 1:45 AM, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov < dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, Tisza, for the update! So I guess this cements it then? Any chance anybody can change the rule in Hungary from now on?
IANAL, but as I understand it the lower-level courts based their decision on certain laws, and the Constitutional Court was asked to say whether that is unconstitutional due to freedom of speech, and they said it was not; they did not say the responsibility of content providers follows directly from the constitution. So if the laws in question (2001/CVIII e-commerce act + civil code) are changed, that could affect the situation. (And of course the constitution could be changed - the current ruling party has supermajority and does that quite frequently.)
Given that the current government has so far always changed laws towards less freedom of speech, not more, I wouldn't hold my breath, though.
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