Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Internet, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Technology

Editor-in-Chief of Delfi and Eesti Päevaleht Urmo Soonvald said that this is a landmark case, and there is a risk of a precedent that all Internet websites where users are able to comment, upload images or videos, would have to start moderating the contents ahead of publication.

“We have come from a regime where civic society and freedom of opinion were luxuries. We wish to secure that in the future, there would be no need to fight for freedom of opinion in Estonia, nor elsewhere in Europe, as it is one of the fundamental rights,” said Soonvald.

Delfi’s objective is to convince the court that freedom of expression on the Internet has to extend to those mediating the content created by users in order to guarantee the actual substance of this freedom. Delfi reported that it has received messages of support from nearly 70 media organisations from all over the world, including Google, Forbes, News Corp, Thomson Reuters and national publications and journalistic associations.

Delfi’s dispute against the State stemmed from a news item published in 2006 that received negative comments and courts found that the organisation ought to have prevented these negative comments from being entered on the website.