No liability for monitoring social media comments, Swiss court rules

Former Swiss lawmaker Yvan Perrin hailed the court verdict as a victory for free speech. Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

Social media account holders are not legally responsible for monitoring comments that others make on their posts, a Swiss court has decided.

The verdict came during a test case against former rightwing parliamentarian Yvan Perrin, whose Facebook post about Muslims in 2019 attracted offensive comments from readers.

The Federal Court ruling, made public on Friday, found that Perrin was not aware of the comments, which included images of a flamethrower and a guillotine, and was therefore not obliged to delete them.

The case was brought by prosecutors in canton Neuchâtel, in western Switzerland, after two lower courts had rejected their complaint.

The prosecution argued that Perrin had violated anti-racism laws by not deleting the comments, but the court threw out the case as the ex-People’s Party politician was neither the author nor aware of the racist remarks.

Criminal liability could potentially be applied only if the account holder knowingly allowed offensive comments to remain on their posts.

Extending liability for monitoring comments would burden people with an unreasonable and permanent duty of care, the court ruled.

Speaking to local radio, Perrin hailed the verdict as a victory for free speech.

Six people who submitted the offensive comments to the post had previously been convicted of violating anti-racism laws.

Criminal liability for the authors of social media comments, including ‘likes’, was established in Switzerland in 2017.

In a landmark trial that year, a man received a two-year suspended sentence and a CHF4,000 ($4,000) fine for ‘liking’ Facebook posts that accused an animal rights activist of racism and anti-Semitism.