"The defendant clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own," a statement from the court said.
This seems facially absurd given how likes/ retweets/ whatever are often used to communicate acknowledgement rather than approval in social media, but then it's also true that people systematically promote content by these methods as well. This is shallow reporting that doesn't give much context for the case; I inf it hard to believe that any court in a country with a well-developed legal system would come to a decision and levy a relatively large fine based only on the bare facts in the article.
I can't wait for the impact this will have on astro turfing companies. The people paying for an army of bot's to upvote articles defaming a climate scientist for instance, will now be legally liable for that.
That's a bit previous, as my my grandmother used to say. I'd need to see a lot more context and also to see this ruling adopted in other jurisdictions before I'd expect any sort of impact on that - I don't know much about Swiss law and it's equally possible that this judgement might be overturned because the judge misunderstood how social media works, for example.
OTOH I do wish there were some sort of legal remedy against such fakery.
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I'm glad Swiss law doesn't affect people much outside Switzerland. I prefer to not be fined thousands of dollars for what I like or not. What if I thumbs down something that's true, is that also defamation?
This ruling is bullshit. The amount of legal waste spent on enforcing stray likes would be insane. This is an obvious violation of free speech. Let people that defame pay for their crime themselves. The idea that "liking" something defamatory can cost you a few thousand dollars means you better not attend the wrong speeches, that could be considered liking. You better not link to peoples opinions (could be considered liking.) And you better not like an honest part of someones post, while disliking another, because there's no half like button. This ruling is garbage.
This seems facially absurd given how likes/ retweets/ whatever are often used to communicate acknowledgement rather than approval in social media, but then it's also true that people systematically promote content by these methods as well. This is shallow reporting that doesn't give much context for the case; I inf it hard to believe that any court in a country with a well-developed legal system would come to a decision and levy a relatively large fine based only on the bare facts in the article.