“When the European Court of Human Rights decided that we are guilty, earlier we had one moderator, we immediately hired four more people. Now we have two moderators who are watching the Russian comments, and the other three are watching the Estonian comments,” told Urmo Soonvald, the editor-in-chief of the greatest Estonian news portal Delfi, to the Armenian journalists visiting Tallinn. Urmo Soonvald, the editor-in-chief of Delfi has branches in Lithuania and Latvia, he is trying also to operate in Ukraine, but as told by the editor-in-chief, it was not possible to go into an honest business there working only with ads.
However, Delfi is well-known to journalists not by its activities rather than what happened to this media, which can be viewed as a precedent. ECHR made a decision on the case of Delfi AS v. Estonia, according to which, the sanction for the comments posted by users on the media websites does not restrict freedom of speech, and the court’s intervention was proportionate. Even the fact that the reader’s comments are not edited, or initially it was written in the site that the latter does not take on the responsible for the reader’s comments, and so on, does not evade from the responsibility. In 2009, as a result of trial pertaining to the comments posted on the Delfi site under an article, the news portal was forced to provide a moral damage compensation to the comments affected party. However, at the request of Aravot, the editor-in-chief of Delfi referring to the incident, affirmed, “We believe that this is a matter of freedom of expression, a person can leave a comment “. Although, later on, he also admitted that the decision made them to be cautious, they sometimes even were forced to ban the comments. For example, after the incident in Crimea, the moderator, according to him, were unable to follow the torrent of reactions, and were forced to give chance only to registered users to leave comments, depriving the rest. “We were convinced that since there is already a precedent, the politicians, millionaires, sportsmen, artists and actors also try to tear away money because of these comments, said Urmo Soonvald, we receive thirty thousand comments per month, and I am sure that everyone can find something in it and sue. However, no one did anything like this. No one.” Delfi had appeal the ECHR’s decision to the Upper Chamber, and now, on July 19, the investigation will commence in Strasbourg. “This is the final instance. After that is only God,” says the editor-in-chief half-jokingly. Anyway, he rates the chances 50/50 predicting that it would be difficult. “Every year about 150 cases are appealed to the Upper House, however, the proceedings are taken for two or three of them. And the fact that our case is among the two or three cases, it means… This is a precedent for everyone, not only for us, but the entire world. And this is the reason why this trial is important.”
Pertaining to the position of Delfi, according to which the person responsible for comments is the poster, and it can be sued for it, Aravot inquired whether they would cooperate with law enforcement if there is an offensive or slanderous comment published on their website, and they are demanded to identify the IP address of the comment poster, Urmo Soonvald answered, “Only if we an official investigation is started rather than just the investigator’s request. In this case, we will tell nobody.” Please listen to the recording to get the complete interview between the Armenian journalists and Delfi’s editor-in-chief.
Read also
Anna Israelyan
Tallinn
