The Media Law Amendment Act, which is intended to regulate the handling of offensive comments on social media, is now undergoing political coordination.
Who is responsible for an offensive comment? IMAGO/Zoonar
Minister of Justice Anna Sporrer and the Vice Chancellor responsible for media Andreas Babler (SPÖ) have sent a legislative proposal for dealing with offensive comments on social media and abusive waves of warnings to the coalition partners ÖVP and NEOS. The media law amendment law went into political coordination today and should quickly enter the parliamentary process, as it said in a statement.
The ÖVP’s initial reaction was cautious. Digitization State Secretary Alexander Pröll (ÖVP) expressed doubts as to whether a change in the liability rules would shift responsibility to where it actually lies: “As long as perpetrators can act under the protection of anonymity, any reform will remain piecemeal.” The NEOS, in turn, had themselves called for a “quick repair”. “The goal is to place responsibility where it actually lies,” said the justice spokeswoman Sophie Wotschke. But charging someone heavily for the wrongdoing of a third party about which that person may not even know “completely misses this goal.”
The essence of the matter is that media owners and social media users can currently be held responsible for offensive comments made by third parties on their postings. According to the current legal situation, they have to pay these costs even if they had already voluntarily and immediately deleted the affected content before initiating proceedings. In some cases, the previous regulation was misused for targeted waves of warnings.
The proposed law now provides for an out-of-court request before filing a court application. Applicants must first request media owners or social media users in writing to remove the objectionable content, stop its distribution or publish it accordingly within three working days.
Only if this request is not complied with and the application of the person concerned is justified will the media owner bear the costs of the legal proceedings, it said. The new regulation is based on existing civil law cost-bearing regulations and is intended to counteract abuse.
“Site operators have a responsibility for the content that appears on their site – including offensive, defamatory or hate comments,” emphasized Babler. Of course, victims of such postings would continue to be protected. But if the current legal situation is being exploited for profiteering, it must be stopped.
Justice Minister Sporrer sees the new regulation as “a balanced solution”. Anyone who quickly removes or corrects content after being asked should not be burdened with procedural costs, says Sporrer: “This gives us effective legal protection against hatred on the internet and at the same time protects smaller media outlets and private individuals in particular from the unjustified use of this indispensable legal remedy.” It is detrimental to the rule of law when legal instruments are misused as a business model to generate profit. (APA)
