En comparación con la jurisprudencia previa del Tribunal Supremo relativa a la responsabilidad de prestadores de servicios de la sociedad de la información por contenidos introducidos por terceros en sus servicios, la sentencia del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos de anteayer en el asunto Delfi AS c Estonia, 64569/09, presenta la particularidad, entre otras, de ir referida a un supuesto en el que el titular del portal, considerado por los tribunales estonios civilmente responsable frente a la víctima de comentarios difamatorios que terceros habían introducido en sus servicios, había previamente establecido –y aplicado- medidas significativas tendentes a la rápida supresión de esos comentarios en su portal. Pese a esta circunstancia, la sentencia desestima la reclamación, al considerar la actuación de los tribunales estonios conforme con el Convenio Europeo de Derechos Humanos (CEDH) y establecer, en particular, que no se produjo una violación del derecho a la libertad de expresión e información (art. 10 CEDH) del portal en el que los terceros habían introducido dichos comentarios difamatorios. Cabe entender que, pese a que la solución alcanzada por los tribunales estonios estuviera condicionada por su interpretación de las normas estonias de transposición de las reglas de la Directiva sobre comercio electrónico en materia de responsabilidad de los intermediarios, así como por el contenido del Derecho civil estonio, se trata de una sentencia muy relevante de cara al enjuiciamiento de este tipo de situaciones en otros Estados miembros del CEDH, como España, y que –pese a que el TEDH insiste en que no es su misión interpretar las normas de la Directiva sobre comercio electrónico- es previsible que tenga una repercusión significativa en la aplicación de las normas de la UE sobre responsabilidad de los prestadores de servicios de intermediación.
En síntesis, los tribunales estonios, corrigiendo un primer pronunciamiento, consideraron civilmente responsable al titular de un portal por comentarios difamatorios introducidos por terceros, pese a admitir que el artículo publicado por el portal al que iban referidos los comentarios era un artículo periodístico con un contenido apropiado y no lesivo de los derechos de la víctima (ap. 86 de la sentencia). La lesión en el derecho al honor de la víctima era el resultado de los mensajes, claramente difamatorios, introducidos en el apartado de comentarios habilitado por el titular del portal. Además, el portal tenía básicamente dos mecanismos de control para tratar de evitar o reaccionar rápidamente frente al riesgo de la introducción de ese tipo de comentarios. Por una parte, tenía un sistema de filtrado automático, que bloqueaba comentarios que incluían ciertas palabras, para evitar precisamente mensajes difamatorios. Por otra, tenía en funcionamiento un sistema de detección y retirada que en la práctica conducía a la rápida supresión de mensajes difamatorios en cuanto la víctima o un usuario advertía al portal de la presencia de tales contenidos (de hecho, el ap. 84 de la sentencia admite que “the applicant company promptly removed the comments once it was notified by the injured party”). Finalmente, los tribunales estonios consideraron que, a la luz de las circunstancias del caso, tales medidas no eran suficientes, por lo que cabía considerar al portal responsable frente a la víctima por los comentarios difamatorios introducidos por terceros. El Tribunal Europeo de Derecho Humanos avala esa interpretación.
Aunque la consecuencia directa de esta sentencia es que la consideración en tales circunstancias como responsable civil del titular del portal y su obligación de asegurar que los comentarios introducidos en sus servicios no infringen el derecho al honor de terceros, es conforme con el Convenio, pues no constituye una violación del derecho a la libertad de expresión e información (art. 10 CEDH); la importancia de la sentencia deriva especialmente de sus aportaciones en relación con la idea de que resulta apropiado que la eventual responsabilidad de los prestadores de servicios de la sociedad de la información por contenidos introducidos por terceros se vincule con los riesgos que para los derechos de las potenciales víctimas generan los servicios a través de los cuales se introducen esos comentarios.
Por consiguiente, cuando esos riesgos, como consecuencia de la configuración del servicio por quien ofrece la posibilidad a terceros de introducir comentarios (o información en sentido amplio, como fotografías) son muy elevados, medidas que en otras situaciones podrían ser suficientes –como un filtrado previo automático más un sistema de detección y retirada- pueden no bastar para considerar que quien facilita a terceros un cauce para difundir esos comentarios actúa con la diligencia exigible y no incurre él mismo en responsabilidad. Precisamente, la sentencia destaca cómo la expansión de servicios que permiten difundir comentarios de manera anónima es un factor muy relevante de riesgo, al tiempo que va unida a una particular dificultad para la exigencia de responsabilidad por parte de las víctimas a los autores de los comentarios lesivos.
Desde la perspectiva práctica del Derecho español (como del resto de Estados miembros de la UE, incluida Estonia), el enjuiciamiento de estas situaciones exige valorar la aplicación al caso de las reglas sobre responsabilidad de los intermediarios contenidas en la Directiva sobre el comercio electrónico, por ejemplo, para determinar si el prestador del servicio (titular del sitio web, portal, blog…) puede o no ser considerado un intermediario con respecto a los contenidos, para en su caso valorar si tiene conocimiento efectivo de que la actividad a la información es ilícita, y si actúa con prontitud en cuanto tiene tal conocimiento para retirar los datos o hacer que el acceso a ellos sea imposible. Se trata de aspectos sobre los que el TEDH no se pronuncia directamente, incluso cabe sostener que la interpretación de los tribunales estonios sobre algunos de esos aspectos pudiera ser discutible –desde la perspectiva de su conformidad con la Directiva-, pero al mismo tiempo son aspectos para cuya interpretación futura, así como en lo relativo al tipo de medidas que pueden resultan admisibles, la sentencia reseñada resultará de gran importancia, en particular sus apartados 86 a 93 –sintetizados en el 94-, que por su interés se reproducen a continuación.
“86. The Court notes that the news article published on the Delfi news portal addressed a topic of a certain degree of public interest. It discussed a shipping company’s moving its ferries from one route to another and in doing so breaking the ice at potential locations of ice roads, as a result of which the opening of such roads – a cheaper and faster connection to the islands compared to the company’s ferry services – was postponed for several weeks. The article itself was a balanced one, a manager of the shipping company was given the opportunity to provide explanations, and the article contained no offensive language. Indeed, the article itself gave rise to no arguments about defamation in the domestic proceedings. Nevertheless, the article dealt with the shipping company’s activities that negatively affected a large number of people. Therefore, the Court considers that the applicant company, by publishing the article in question, could have realised that it might cause negative reactions against the shipping company and its managers and that, considering the general reputation of comments on the Delfi news portal, there was a higher-than-average risk that the negative comments could go beyond the boundaries of acceptable criticism and reach the level of gratuitous insult or hate speech. It also appears that the number of comments posted on the article in question was above average and indicated a great deal of interest in the matter among the readers and those who posted their comments. Thus, the Court concludes that the applicant company was expected to exercise a degree of caution in the circumstances of the present case in order to avoid being held liable for an infringement of other persons’ reputations.
87. As regards the measures applied by the applicant company, the Court notes that, in addition to the disclaimer stating that the writers of the comments – and not the applicant company – were accountable for them, and that it was prohibited to post comments that were contrary to good practice or contained threats, insults, obscene expressions or vulgarities, the applicant company had two general mechanisms in operation. Firstly, it had an automatic system of deletion of comments based on stems of certain vulgar words. Secondly, it had a notice-and-take-down system in place according to which anyone could notify it of an inappropriate comment by simply clicking on a button designated for that purpose, to bring it to the attention of the portal administrators. In addition, on some occasions the administrators of the portal removed inappropriate comments on their own initiative. Thus, the Court considers that the applicant company cannot be said to have wholly neglected its duty to avoid causing harm to third parties’ reputations. Nevertheless, it would appear that the automatic word-based filter used by the applicant company was relatively easy to circumvent. Although it may have prevented some of the insults or threats, it failed to do so in respect of a number of others. Thus, while there is no reason to doubt its usefulness, the Court considers that the word-based filter as such was insufficient for preventing harm being caused to third persons.
88. The Court has further had regard to the notice-and-take-down system as used by the applicant company. Indeed, the question of whether by applying this system the applicant company had fulfilled its duty of diligence was one of the main points of disagreement between the parties in the present case. The Court firstly notes that the technical solution related to the Delfi portal’s notice-and-take-down system was easily accessible and convenient for users – there was no need to take any steps other than clicking on a button provided for that purpose. There was no need to formulate reasons as to why a comment was considered inappropriate or to send a letter to the applicant company with the pertinent request. Although in the present case the interested person did not use the notice-and-take-down feature offered by the applicant company on its website, but rather relied on making his claim in writing and sending it by mail, this was his own choice, and in any event there is no dispute that the defamatory comments were removed by the applicant company without delay after receipt of the notice. Nevertheless, by that time the comments had already been accessible to the public for six weeks.
89. The Court notes that in the interested person’s opinion, shared by the domestic courts, the prior automatic filtering and notice-and-take-down system used by the applicant company did not ensure sufficient protection for the rights of third persons. The domestic courts attached importance in this context to the fact that the publication of the news articles and making public the readers’ comments on these articles was part of the applicant company’s professional activity. It was interested in the number of readers as well as comments, on which its advertising revenue depended. The Court considers this argument pertinent in determining the proportionality of the interference with the applicant company’s freedom of expression. It also finds that publishing defamatory comments on a large Internet news portal, as in the present case, implies a wide audience for the comments. The Court further notes that the applicant company – and not a person whose reputation could be at stake – was in a position to know about an article to be published, to predict the nature of the possible comments prompted by it and, above all, to take technical or manual measures to prevent defamatory statements from being made public. Indeed, the actual writers of comments could not modify or delete their comments once posted on the Delfi news portal – only the applicant company had the technical means to do this. Thus, the Court considers that the applicant company exercised a substantial degree of control over the comments published on its portal even if it did not make as much use as it could have done of the full extent of the control at its disposal.
90. The Court has also had regard to the fact that the domestic courts did not make any orders to the applicant company as to how the latter should ensure the protection of third parties’ rights, leaving the choice to the applicant company. Thus, no specific measures such as a requirement of prior registration of users before they were allowed to post comments, monitoring comments by the applicant company before making them public, or speedy review of comments after posting, to name just a few, were imposed on the applicant company. The Court considers the leeway left to the applicant company in this respect to be an important factor reducing the severity of the interference with its freedom of expression.
91. The Court has taken note of the applicant company’s argument that the affected person could have brought a claim against the actual authors of the comments. It attaches more weight, however, to the Government’s counter-argument that for the purposes of bringing a civil claim it was very difficult for an individual to establish the identity of the persons to be sued. Indeed, for purely technical reasons it would appear disproportionate to put the onus of identification of the authors of defamatory comments on the injured person in a case like the present one. Keeping in mind the State’s positive obligations under Article 8 that may involve the adoption of measures designed to secure respect for private life in the sphere of the relations of individuals between themselves (see Von Hannover (no. 2), cited above, § 98, with further references), the Court is not convinced that measures allowing an injured party to bring a claim only against the authors of defamatory comments – as the applicant company appears to suggest – would have, in the present case, guaranteed effective protection of the injured person’s right to private life. It notes that it was the applicant company’s choice to allow comments by non-registered users, and that by doing so it must be considered to have assumed a certain responsibility for these comments.
92. The Court is mindful, in this context, of the importance of the wishes of Internet users not to disclose their identity in exercising their freedom of expression. At the same time, the spread of the Internet and the possibility – or for some purposes the danger – that information once made public will remain public and circulate forever, calls for caution. The ease of disclosure of information on the Internet and the substantial amount of information there means that it is a difficult task to detect defamatory statements and remove them. This is so for an Internet news portal operator, as in the present case, but this is an even more onerous task for a potentially injured person, who would be less likely to possess resources for continual monitoring of the Internet. The Court considers the latter element an important factor in balancing the rights and interests at stake. It also refers, in this context, to the Krone Verlag (no. 4) judgment, where it found that shifting the defamed person’s risk to obtain redress for defamation proceedings to the media company, usually in a better financial position than the defamer, was not as such a disproportionate interference with the media company’s right to freedom of expression (see Krone Verlag GmbH & Co. KG v. Austria (no. 4), no. 72331/01, § 32, 9 November 2006).
93. Lastly, the Court notes that the applicant company was obliged to pay the affected person the equivalent of EUR 320 in non-pecuniary damages. The Court is of the opinion that this sum, also taking into account that the applicant company was a professional operator of one of the largest Internet news portals in Estonia, can by no means be considered disproportionate to the breach established by the domestic courts.
94. Based on the above elements, in particular the insulting and threatening nature of the comments, the fact that the comments were posted in reaction to an article published by the applicant company in its professionally-managed news portal run on a commercial basis, the insufficiency of the measures taken by the applicant company to avoid damage being caused to other parties’ reputations and to ensure a realistic possibility that the authors of the comments will be held liable, and the moderate sanction imposed on the applicant company, the Court considers that in the present case the domestic courts’ finding that the applicant company was liable for the defamatory comments posted by readers on its Internet news portal was a justified and proportionate restriction on the applicant company’s right to freedom of expression”.
