Big businessman goes to war against web portals
18.03.2008, 08:32Estonian shipping magnate and real estate
businessman Vjacheslav Leedo has sued Delfi, Estonia’s largest social web
portal.
Leedo claims that web portals such as Delfi must be responsible for comments
made by readers and start editing them before they become public. Portals say
that this impossible since they don’t have the capacity to do it.
Today’s Eesti Päevaleht daily writes that Leedo wants web portals such as
Delfi to be responsible for comments made by readers and start editing them
before they become public.
More specifically, Leedo sued Delfi for a news item it published in January
2006 where it claimed that Leedo’s ferry company SLK deliberately damaged the
ice road that was connecting mainland with the island of Saaremaa.
Leedo says that he was not so much hurt by the news, but by the personal
nature of comments to the item. In two first days, the news had 185 comments
from mainly anonymous commentators.
Leedo is now claiming half a million from Delfi saying that the damage for
one comment is worth bout 25,000 kroons.
Portals say that policing the contents of comments is impossible since they
don’t have the capacity to do it. Owners of web portals claims that journalists
cannot start checking whether claims made in such comments are true or not.
Andres Raudsalu, CEO of Delfi, says that it could create anarchy. “If Delfi
is found guilty in this case, any Internet website will be made responsible for
the contents put up by any reader.”
Raudsalu adds that Leedo’s victory would be a huge blow to freedom of speech
in Estonia.