Are websites responsible for readers' comments?

The operator of a website, even a non-professional one, is liable for readers’ comments—including those that are not anonymous—and therefore risks a conviction for defamation. This was established, for the first time, in a ruling issued in recent days by the Court of Cassation. The victim of the defamation is Carlo Tavecchio, president of the FIGC (Italian Football Federation), over a comment published in 2009 on the website Agenziacalcio.it, which was also taken down due to this incident. The author of the comment, posted independently, called Tavecchio a “notorious scoundrel” and a “convicted felon,” attaching a criminal record. In the first instance, the site operator was acquitted; in the second instance, he was convicted; and now the Court of Cassation has confirmed the ruling: he must pay 60,000 euros to Tavecchio for “complicity in defamation.” According to the Court of Cassation, there was complicity because the operator must have known of the comment’s existence, since its author had sent him an email containing Tavecchio’s criminal record. The defendant, however, claims he only learned of the defamatory comment when the police notified him of the site’s seizure.

The ruling is particularly striking because case law had previously seemed to be heading in a different direction: the European Court of Justice has held that website operators are not liable even for anonymous comments. Last November, Massimiliano Tonelli, founder of the website Cartellopoli (which covers the deterioration of Rome), was acquitted on appeal. At the trial court level, he had been sentenced to nine months in prison for incitement to commit a crime in connection with certain anonymous comments. The previous line of interpretation, which had instead led to the 2014 conviction of the operator of Nuovocadore.it, seemed to have been abandoned. Instead, the Court of Cassation has now ruled on the merits of the case for the first time. Website operators have been warned. But not just them—all users as well. Considering that anyone on the web can manage a website or other online space, with their own (sometimes dangerous) comments.