Aftonbladet is one of the biggest selling newspapers in Sweden and its web site at aftonbladet.se was a few years ago the winner of an international award for the best on-line newspaper. The site’s message board, called “Tyck Till” (which translates as “your opinion”), was moderated and the site made a point of saying that all postings were manually screened before going live to the site.
The report of the case was first made in another discussion forum, kuro5hin.org and subsequently on other sites. Details of the case vary among the reports, but it appears that, in October 2000, four comments appeared on the Tyck Till page during a discussion about the Middle East. The comments were extreme, apparently advocating the death of jews. Under Swedish law, “public agitation against ethnic groups” is illegal. Readers alerted the site but, apparently for technical reasons, the removal of the comments took some considerable time.
Although the court’s judgment is still unpublished, reports on the case suggest that the judge did not consider it significant that the offending comments were not removed quickly. The following are the comments of Aftonbladet’s political editor, translated by a Swedish user of kuro5hin.org:
“It doesn't matter if the newspaper removes the posts as soon as they're discovered. The judgement clearly states that just the fact that those kinds of posts make it on to the net makes the publication criminal, even if they've only been on the net for just a second and read by just a few people.”
The district court in Sweden convicted the site’s editor, Kalle Jungkvist, holding him responsible for the comments. According to one commentator, “a conditional sentence was given with a $1,200 fine (estimated).”
Sweden has still to implement the E-commerce Directive which clarifies the protection afforded to those hosting content provided by others - such as operators of unmoderated discussion boards. However, where a site undertakes to vet all postings, it is more likely to bear responsibility for the comments made if they slip-through the examination of a moderator.