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The coverage of the tragic events in France on 7, 8 and 9 January 2015 by the audiovisual media have been the subject of debate. On the day of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, Olivier Schrameck, Chairman of the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory authority - CSA), paid “tribute to all those whose talent and bravery serve to promote the freedom of expression, an essential prerequisite for democracy, even at the cost of their lives, without ever giving in to the contemptible threats they may receive”. Two days later, when the continuous news channels, as well as TF1 and France...

In a ruling of 18 November 2014 (case no. VI ZR 76/14), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that a person about whom suspicion-based reports are published but who is later found innocent cannot demand that the original reports be corrected. However, he can ask the medium responsible to publish a subsequent report, explaining that the suspicions, which were lawfully published, later turned out to be false. Although the defendant in this case was a newspaper publisher, the ruling also applies to suspicion-based reporting in the audiovisual media sector. The case concerned...

In 2009, the Flemish Council of Journalism (Raad voor de Journalistiek), a self-regulatory body that deals with questions and complaints concerning journalistic practice, issued its “decision” on a complaint against a journalist and editor of an online subscription newsletter. The complaint concerned a significant number of articles, which accused the complainant of theft, threats, social fraud and animal cruelty. Aside from the fact that the complaint was upheld due to infringements of the principles of impartial gathering of information, distinguishing between the description of facts and comments...

The Article 29 Working Party, an independent advisory body established under the EU’s Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC), has published its “Guidelines” on the implementation of the EU Court of Justice’s ruling in Google Spain v. AEPD concerning search engines as data controllers (see IRIS 2014-6/3). The Working Party is mainly comprised of representatives of data protection authorities from EU Member States and the purpose of its latest Guidelines is to (a) provide information on how data protection authorities intend to implement the Google Spain judgment; and (b) provide a list of common criteria...

On 2 October 2014, the Turkish Constitutional Court (CC) held that the amendments to the Internet Act, Law No. 5651 (see IRIS 2007-7/32), which were adopted on 10 September 2014, are unconstitutional and therefore, must be annulled (for other recent decisions of the CC on freedom of expression and the Internet see IRIS 2014-7/33 and IRIS 2014-6/35). The controversial amendments, which were adopted as a part of an omnibus bill, introduced fundamental changes concerning internet data rendition. According to the amendments, the Telekomünikasyon İletişim Başkanlığı (Presidency of Telecommunication...