Search results : 978

On 18 January 2018 and 22 January 2018, two decisions were delivered in cases concerning the right to be forgotten, although the matters raised in these pre-trial hearings are procedural, both flagging up the impact - in different ways - of such orders on freedom of expression. The NT1 case concerns two claims brought against Google LLC. The two claimants (NT1 and NT2) are unconnected, but the legal issues raised in the claims are the same. Both NT1 and NT2 were convicted of offences, but those convictions are now “spent” under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. After citing paragraphs 80-81...

In a decision of 25 October 2017 (6Ob116/17b), Austria’s Oberste Gerichtshof (Supreme Court - OGH) submitted a series of questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning the legal classification of so-called hate speech and its consequences under European law. In particular, the questions concern the scope of hosting providers’ obligations to take down illegal content in the light of Directive 2000/31/EC (E-Commerce Directive). The (interim) decision concerned hate speech published on the Facebook social network. On 3 April 2016, a private user of the online platform, registered...

On 23 January 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment in the case of Faludy-Kovács v. Hungary, concerning media coverage of a non-political public figure who had “actively sought the limelight”, and the extent of her right to reputation. The applicant in the case was the widow of the well-known Hungarian poet, György Faludy. In 2008, the Helyi Téma newspaper published a front-page article, with a photograph of the applicant and her late husband, with the headline “Trampling on the memory of Faludy. The widow does anything for the limelight”. The article concerned...

On 25 October 2017, Amsterdam District Court ordered an author who posted false reviews concerning a day-care centre on the Google platform Google Maps to pay EUR 2 702 in damages to the owners of the day-care centre. On Google Maps, internet users can post reviews of locations they have visited. Between April 2015 and February 2016, the author wrote several negative reviews of the day-care centre using different accounts. In the reviews, he claimed that the day-care centre was unstructured, and described the situation as “hysterical”. He also claimed that the day-care centre was unhygienic, that...

In December 2017, the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeals (Gerechtshof Arnhem-Leeuwarden) ruled on the question of whether broadcaster AVROTROS acted unlawfully towards a person by giving a distorted picture of a high-profile neighbours’ dispute in an episode of the television programme EenVandaag. The Court considered whether the respondent’s right to respect for private and family life, including his honour and good name, as guaranteed under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), outweighed the right to freedom of expression of AVROTROS under Article 10 ECHR. The case followed...