ARTICLE 19

ARTICLE 19 is a, London-based, international organisation defending free expression worldwide. Its name refers to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guaranteeing the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Key recommendations from 2013

  • Web hosting providers or hosts should in principle be immune from liability for third- party content when they have not been involved in modifying the content in question.
  • Privatised enforcement mechanisms should be abolished. Hosts should only be required to remove content following an order issued by an independent and impartial court or other adjudicatory body which has determined that the material at issue is unlawful. From the hosts’ perspective, orders issued by independent and impartial bodies provide a much greater degree of legal certainty.
  • Notice-to-notice procedures should be developed as an alternative to notice and take down procedures. These would allow aggrieved parties to send a notice of complaint to the host. Notice-to-notice systems should meet a minimum set of requirements, including conditions about the content of the notice and clear procedural guidelines that intermediaries should follow.
  • Clear conditions should be set for content removal in cases of alleged serious criminality.[1]

References