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On 19 September 2017, the draft Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the roles and responsibilities of Internet intermediaries was finalised by the Committee of experts on Internet intermediaries (MSI-NET). The draft Recommendation has now been sent to the Steering Committee on Media and Information Society (CDSMI) for approval. The MSI-NET was established by the Committee of Ministers in 2016 to prepare, under the supervision of the CDSMI, standard-setting proposals on the roles and responsibilities of Internet intermediaries. The Recommendation begins by confirming...

On 17 October 2017, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued a reply to the Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Recommendation 2098 (2017) on “Ending cyberdiscrimination and online hate” (see IRIS 2017-3/4). In its reply, the Committee of Ministers mainly referred to the PACE requests concerning the reviewing and updating of several policy instruments concerning hate speech, intermediaries and the media. With regard to the PACE’s request for the Committee of Ministers to review Recommendation 97(20) on hate speech (see 1997-10/4), the Committee reiterates that the definition of hate...

On 7 November 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment in Einarsson v. Iceland, concerning a public figure’s claim that his right to reputation had been violated following an Icelandic Supreme Court decision that a post on the image-sharing platform Instagram was not defamatory. The applicant in the case was a well-known author and media personality in Iceland. On 22 November 2012, X published an altered picture of the applicant on his Instagram account, drawing an upside-down cross on the applicant’s forehead, writing “loser” across his face, and with the caption...

On 12 October 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its decision in Tamiz v. U, concerning a politician’s claim that his right to protection of reputation had been violated following the UK courts’ refusal to find Google liable for allegedly defamatory comments on Google’s Blogger platform. The applicant was a Conservative Party candidate in local UK elections, and on 27 April 2011, a blog post was published on the "London Muslim” blog, hosted on blogger.com, which is owned by Google Inc. The blog post concerned the applicant, and included the observation that “this Tory prat...

On 29 September 2017, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the claim of the telecom company Pretium to oblige the broadcaster Tros to hand over unedited hidden camera footage would be an impermissible restriction on the right to freedom of speech (see IRIS 2015-7/23). The decision relates to the question of the extent to which hidden camera footage falls within the scope of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and whether an order to hand over audiovisual material may be rejected if the desired evidence can be obtained by other means. In 2008, Tros aired an episode of the...