We missed this earlier: A top European Court recently upheld previous rulings holding a right-wing French politician liable for racist and Islamophobic third-party comments made on posts on his Facebook wall. The free speech "interference", or restriction, was “necessary in a democratic society," ruled the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights on May 15th. "...Owing to a politician’s particular status and position in society, he or she is more likely to influence voters, or even to incite them, directly or indirectly, to adopt positions and conduct that may prove unlawful, thus explaining why he or she can be expected to be 'all the more vigilant'... ...The Court therefore fully endorses the Chamber’s [a lower court] finding that the language used in the comments at issue clearly incited hatred and violence against a person on account of his or her religion and this cannot be disguised or minimised by the election context or by a wish to discuss local difficulties..." — the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights's May 15th judgment. Why it matters: It's no secret that political activities—coupled with lacklustre content moderation—can deepen communal faultlines online. On the one hand, the court's reasoning could make high-profile figures more conscious of the hateful potential of their online speech, creating safer physical and digital environments. But, that sword swings both ways. As an intervenor in the case Media Defence noted, "imposing liability on social media users for third party content would be more likely to expose them to coordinated attack…
