La diffamazione per aver pubblicato su Facebbok le email aggressive/offensive ricevute non è coperto sal safe harbour ex 230 CDA: essenzialmente perchè non si tratta di materiali di terzi che questi volevano pubblicare in internet ma di sceltga del destinatario delle email.
Questa la decisione dell’Eastern district of California, 3 marzo 2022, Crowley ed altri c. Faison ed altri, Case 2:21-cv-00778-MCE-JDP .
Si tratta della pubblicazione da parte della responsabile locale in Sacramento del movimnto Black Lives Matter delle email che aveva ricevuto.
Passo pertinente: <<Defendants nonetheless ignore certain key distinctions that make their reliance on the Act problematic.
Immunity under § 230 requires that the third-party provider, herethe individual masquerading as Karra Crowley, have “provided” the emails to Defendants“for use on the Internet or another interactive computer service.” Batzel, 333 F.3d at1033 (emphasis in original).
Here, as Plaintiffs point out, the emails were sent directly to BLM Sacramento’s general email address. “[I]f the imposter intended for his/her emailsto be posted on BLM Sacramento’s Facebook page, the imposter could have posted theemail content directly to the Facebook page,” yet did not do so. Pls.’ Opp to Mot. toStrike, 18:9-11 (emphasis in original). Those circumstances raise a legitimate questionas to whether the imposter indeed intended to post on the internet, and without a findingto that effect the Act’s immunity does not apply. These concerns are further amplified by the fact that Karra Crowley notifiedDefendants that she did not author the emails, and they did not come from her emailaddress within 24 hours after the last email attributed to her was posted. Defendantsnonetheless refused to take down the offending posts from its Facebook page, causingthe hateful and threatening messages received by Plaintiffs to continue.
As set forthabove, one of the most disgusting of those messages, in which the sender graphicallydescribed how he or she was going to kill Karra Crowley and her daughter, was sentnearly a month later.In addition, while the Act does provide immunity for materials posted on theinternet which the publisher had no role in creating, here Defendants did not simply postthe emails. They went on to suggest that Karra Crowley “needs to be famous” andrepresented that her “information has been verified”, including business and homeaddresses. Compl., ¶¶ 13-14.6 It is those representations that Plaintiffs claim arelibelous, particularly after Defendants persisted in allowing the postings to remain evenafter they had been denounced as false, a decision which caused further harassmentand threats to be directed towards Plaintiffs.
As the California Supreme Court noted inBarrrett, Plaintiffs remain “free under section 230 to pursue the originator of a defamatory Internet publication.” 40 Cal. 4th at 6>>
Visto il dettato della norma, difficile dar torto al giudice californiano.
Si noti che ad invocare il safe harbour non è una piattaforma digitale, come capita di solito, ma un suo utilizzatore: cosa perfettamente legittima, però, visto il dettato normativo.
(notizia e link alla sentenza dal blog del prof. Eric Goldman)