In the recent case of Delfi v Estonia [2015] (no. 64569/09), the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is part of the Council of Europe, introduced the principle that websites could be liable for comments posted by users.

The case involved a news article that Delfi, a commercial news portal, posted on its website involving the delayed production of an ice road that linked Estonia’s mainland to islands off the country’s west coast. Threatening comments were added to the comments section directed at the director of the ferry company responsible for the delay, but were not picked up by the website’s filtering system, and six weeks lapsed before these comments were removed by the website’s operators. The article itself was balanced and concerned a matter of public interest; however, the ECHR found that Delfi should have anticipated offensive comments and been more proactive in removing the hostile comments as they were posted.Continue Reading European Court of Human Rights finds website operators responsible for user comments