Legal liability of the owner of comments made by third parties on Facebook

The General Assembly of the Court of Cassation (TS) Civil Chamber, with its decision dated November 3 and numbered 747/2022, punished the Facebook account owner for violation of honor for not removing the offensive comments posted by third parties on your public profile.

Because the Chamber has the tools and control to do so, it holds you responsible for not resolving said violations.

The sentence examines the responsibility of the user in question and partially endorses the A Coruña State Court’s decision in appreciation of crimes against the right to dignity and freedom of expression. It examines a dispute over the balance between the right to honor and freedom of expression, in which the A Coruña State Court considered that the plaintiffs’ right to honor was violated by certain statements of the account holder, as well as by third-party comments. with attacks and insults against them.

The Supreme Court considers that the account holder’s interpretation, which was described as offensive by the second-instance court, was not sufficiently serious and of offensive intensity to constitute an illegitimate interference with the right to honor.

However, the Supreme Court understands that in the management of the social network account, the owner’s management and control powers over his profile are very wide: blocking someone’s profile to view or comment on their posts, react to comments made add to your profile, reply, hide, report, mark as spam , block or even delete the profile or page that posted them.

Therefore, the Supreme Court understood that the convicted person could not ignore what was posted on his profile by other users, even though he did not make the comments himself, because, according to the judges’ estimation, the account holder has a responsibility not to delete the comments. once known, it cannot be excused from your public profile for lack of legitimacy, danger of censorship or weighting difficulties, as there is a reactive duty of care and diligence obliging you to delete it immediately.

If he does not act and neglects the situation in question, he will be in breach of the duty in question and will be liable for the damages caused.

Moreover, the Court of Cassation draws attention to the passivity of the accused in these damaging comments and the deletion of comments by a third party who asked for common sense and measured language.

The Court of Cassation further emphasizes that the defendant did not question that the statements of these third parties constituted a serious attack on the honor of the plaintiffs. Furthermore, in this case of blatant illegitimate interference with the right to honor, “the responsibility of the account holder not to remove them from their public profile, once known, cannot be justified by negligence.” legitimacy, danger of censorship or weighting difficulties”.

In the Court’s view, “in exercising its controlling power there is an obligation of reactive care and diligence which compels it to be promptly deleted.” If you fail to act or neglect, you acknowledge that you are in breach of this duty and that you are liable for any damages incurred as a result of negligence resulting from such care and negligence.

The account holder had options to block profiles, hide comments, report, reply and hide. Therefore, the Supreme Court concludes that the owner is responsible for the posts in his profile, arguing that the accused should react “with care” and “immediately delete” these messages.

In its decision, the Court of Cassation Civil Chamber explains the responsibility of not deleting comments from the public profile of the account holder. “Lack of legitimacy cannot be excused by the danger of censorship or difficulties in weighing, because there is a reactive duty of care and diligence that compels you to promptly delete when exercising your control power”. Therefore, if you do not act and disregard, you are in breach of this duty. “To be liable for damages resulting from negligence arising from the said care and carelessness”.

In the light of this sentence, it can be concluded that when opening a profile on a social network, we should not only pay attention to the comments we publish and the materials we share, but also take into account the comments of third parties on our own wall. or profile respects the dignity, privacy and self image of those affected, because we will be considered responsible for the content and comments that appear on our wall or profile, so we must use third-party blocking options, deletion of content and comments.

The Supreme Court thus confirms that the account holder was sentenced to remove the malicious comments from his Facebook profile, publish this fine and pay 3,000 Euros in damages.