Intermediary liabilty for online hate speech
Palin, Linda (2020-09-07)
Intermediary liabilty for online hate speech
Palin, Linda
(07.09.2020)
Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.
suljettu
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on:
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021052832117
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021052832117
Tiivistelmä
Internet intermediaries provide an important opportunity for their users to use their freedom of expression. The popularity of social media and blogging platforms is constantly growing. Since the quantity of content pubshed by a third party is growing, this increases the amount of hate speech as well. Most intermediaries operate globally in constantly changing online environment and regulations for intermediary liability vary in different countries.
This thesis examines, firstly, how globalization of online environment creates difficulties to set generally accepted global criterion for intermediary liability for hate speech and how it should be solved. Secondly, this thesis examines how could intermediaries protect human rights in the best possible way.
This thesis uses comparative legal research as its research method. The viewpoint of this study is in the EU law which means that outcome is intented to evoke and answer to questions and suggest solutions concerning EU legal system by comparing the EU and the U.S. systems. Besides, the question how these systems uphold human rights would be reviewed against international conventions. Intermediary liability is a global problem which could be better solved by learning from other legal systems.
Intermediary liability is regulated in Article 14 of E-Commerce Directive (2000/31) in the EU and Section 230 of U.S. Communications Decency Act (CDA) which play a crucial role as a ground of this study. Besides, international human rights standards as well as relevant case-law should be taken account.
This thesis regonizes that evaluating illegal content is a complex task since social, political, economic and cultural differences affect on how different countries define hate speech. Consequently, the level of liability that intermediaries face for the defamation of their users should not depend on these cultural factors. Instead, if intermediary fulfills the standard of “a diligent economic operator” and makes a good fait decision, it should not fear the lose of liability exemption. Besides, intermediaries should be encouraged to actively seek hate speech without fear to gather knowledge and lose immunity.
In order to protect human right in the best possible way, “notice and takedown” should be replaced by “notice and action” in the EU. This system would reduce over-removal of user generated content, since it does not require to take the content down expeditiously in fear of liabilty without proper discretion.
This thesis examines, firstly, how globalization of online environment creates difficulties to set generally accepted global criterion for intermediary liability for hate speech and how it should be solved. Secondly, this thesis examines how could intermediaries protect human rights in the best possible way.
This thesis uses comparative legal research as its research method. The viewpoint of this study is in the EU law which means that outcome is intented to evoke and answer to questions and suggest solutions concerning EU legal system by comparing the EU and the U.S. systems. Besides, the question how these systems uphold human rights would be reviewed against international conventions. Intermediary liability is a global problem which could be better solved by learning from other legal systems.
Intermediary liability is regulated in Article 14 of E-Commerce Directive (2000/31) in the EU and Section 230 of U.S. Communications Decency Act (CDA) which play a crucial role as a ground of this study. Besides, international human rights standards as well as relevant case-law should be taken account.
This thesis regonizes that evaluating illegal content is a complex task since social, political, economic and cultural differences affect on how different countries define hate speech. Consequently, the level of liability that intermediaries face for the defamation of their users should not depend on these cultural factors. Instead, if intermediary fulfills the standard of “a diligent economic operator” and makes a good fait decision, it should not fear the lose of liability exemption. Besides, intermediaries should be encouraged to actively seek hate speech without fear to gather knowledge and lose immunity.
In order to protect human right in the best possible way, “notice and takedown” should be replaced by “notice and action” in the EU. This system would reduce over-removal of user generated content, since it does not require to take the content down expeditiously in fear of liabilty without proper discretion.