One part of Pan-Europe decides that online sites are liable for their commenters.

Ah, Europe.  Nice place to visit, wouldn’t live there on a bet. I prefer a more… robust sort of civilization:

In a surprise decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg has ruled that the Estonian news site Delfi may be held responsible for anonymous and allegedly defamatory comments from its readers. As the digital rights organization Access notes, this goes against the European Union’s e-commerce directive, which “guarantees liability protection for intermediaries that implement notice-and-takedown mechanisms on third-party comments.” As such, Peter Micek, Senior Policy Counsel at Access, says the ECHR judgment has “dramatically shifted the internet away from the free expression and privacy protections that created the internet as we know it.”

Although admittedly part of the problem is that Europe currently enjoys, if that’s the right word, a situation where various nation-states have been infested with an unelected and unaccountable supra-national bureaucracy that is taking over every aspect of their lives.  …Alternatively, they’re faced with a situation where an international coalition of pan-national bureaucrats is frantically trying to stitch together a framework that will hopefully prevent the various countries of Europe from deciding that today is the perfect day to start another general war that would end up slaughtering tens of millions of people. As I said: great place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there.

Via Instapundit.

5 thoughts on “One part of Pan-Europe decides that online sites are liable for their commenters.”

  1. Not sure anything their doing now will prevent that general war. It might even be seen as the direct cause 50 years from now.

  2. “Enjoys” is not the word. The word you’re looking for, is “infested”.
    .
    I certainly haven’t seen anything these pan-national bureaucrats have done that makes war *less* likely.
    But at least they’ve made themselves a target to be slaughtered first.
    But a canary in the coal mine that richly deserves its fate poses a bit of a dilemma. Makes it a bit difficult to intervene.

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