The NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs discussed and with positive conclusion introduced the clamorous draft on the fakes into the NA session agenda, which was opposed by many representatives of the media, thinking that it is a truncheon over the head of the mass media. The authors of the draft believe that the dissemination of information containing insult and slander by the fake users in the social networks, thru “fakes”, have become widespread recently. It violates the right to respect the private and family life, the right to dignity and so on. Hence, it is necessary to define a responsibility for the media for disseminating the posts and the insulting comments of the fake users.
Note that last year, the Committee had convened a consulting hearing with regard to this draft, as a result, the authors had eliminated the wording that had caused big discontents. “An author of information is regarded as unknown, in fact, when “the person concerned, after making reasonable efforts, is not able to identify the author, irrespective of where the information containing defamatory or insulting comment is found.” Today, the draft was presented to the Committee session by co-author Edmon Marukyan.
In an interview with Aravot.am, Mr. Marukyan said, “We were waiting for the judgment of the European Court to see whether the European Court will make the opposite judgment or not. But we saw that the European Court’s judgment is more stringent and defines that no matter you could do a moderation or not, if they have accessed and posted an insult underneath your article, you should do the moderation not automatically, but by the human factor. To access, have a look and delete the insult one by one. Moreover, if they complain saying to delete, but you do not do it, the whole responsibility lies on you. We offer a weaker version, but we still have to discuss it with the media, we entered it on the agenda so that the draft is not left out and not to go thru all these procedures again.”
We clarified if the material is disseminated on Facebook and insulting comments are posted under this material, so whether the mass media also bears responsibility for it or only for its page, Marukyan replied, “We now do not offer anything, just not to leave the draft out, the old version is presented, later the mass media will suggest their vision on the solution of the problem. The discussions are still to come. Even if one mass media speaks and says that this is a truncheon over our heads, I will recall my signature from underneath this draft. Simply, today, alone I could speak, and I spoke not to leave it out and to include into the great agenda. No contextual discussion has been held yet.”
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Hripsime JEBEJYAN
