Liability of internet intermediaries and freedom of expression

Abstract

As the role of the internet becomes bigger in our everyday lives as so does liability of internet service providers, which are the puppet masters of every moment that we spend on the internet by providing us the content and opening opportunity for us as users to leave our opinion in form of comments on their platforms. This opportunity however leaves the question – if the posted speech is illegal, who should the intermediary on whose platform the speech was posted be liable for it? By predicting this issue, the E-Commerce Directive had provided the protection for intermediaries in case if they were not aware of the illegal content and removed it upon the first notice. Unfortunately, practice had shown that even if this criteria is met, intermediaries can be rejected the protection, which was first shown in the Delfi v Estonia case. This paper is based on analyzing this issue and is aimed to find out what impact can the liability of internet intermediaries have on the freedom of expression protected by Article 10 of ECHR.