The use of encryption and anonymity to exercise the rights to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age 2015, para. 54
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- Some States and regional courts have moved towards imposing responsibilities on Internet service providers and media platforms to regulate online comments by anonymous users. Ecuador, for instance, in its Organic Communications Law, requires intermediaries to generate mechanisms to record personal data to allow the identification of those posting comments. In Delfi v. Estonia (application No. 64569/09), the European Court of Human Rights upheld an Estonian law that imposes liability on a media platform for anonymous defamatory statements posted on its site. Such intermediary liability is likely to result either in real-name registration policies, thereby undermining anonymity, or the elimination of posting altogether by those websites that cannot afford to implement screening procedures, thus harming smaller, independent media. The recently adopted Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability, drafted by a coalition of civil society organizations, provide a sound set of guidelines for States and international and regional mechanisms to protect expression online.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Freedom of Opinion, Report to the HRC (2015), A/HRC/29/32, para. 54.
- Paragraph number
- 54
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