Communicated on 28 January 2020 Published on 17 February 2020

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 9578/19 OOO REDAKTSIYA SEM NA SEM and Sofya Dmitriyevna YEZHOVA against Russia and 4 other applications (see list appended)

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE S

The cases concern the publisher ’ s responsibility for the material posted by third parties or made available via a hyperlink. The applicants are the online magazine 7x7 and its editor-in-chief. Their first case was communicated previously (see OOO Redaktsiya 7x7 and Yezhova v. Russia , nos. 40050/17 and 50535/17, communicated on 23 January 2018).

Application no. 9578/19: the magazine posted a hyperlink to a YouTube interview with a libertarian blogger who spoke about drug legalisation policy. The applicants were fined RUB 800,000 and RUB 40,000, respectively, for “promoting or unlawfully advertising narcotics”.

Application no. 9856/19: the applicants were fined a total of RUB 60,000 and RUB 15,000, respectively, for a third-party blogger ’ s post which contained bad language, even though the language had been deleted immediately upon notification from the telecoms regulator.

Application no. 14843/19: the magazine posted a hyperlink to a YouTube video in which third-party bloggers interviewed activists from the campaign headquarters in the run-up to the legislative election. The second applicant was fined RUB 1,000 for “illegal electoral campaigning”.

Application no. 30266/19: the applicants were fined RUB 60,000 and RUB 10,000, respectively, for a third-party blogger ’ s post which contained bad language, while the blogger did not incur any liability.

Application no. 58446/19: the applicants were fined a total of RUB 102,000 for bad language in third party ’ s comments.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Was there a violation of Article 10 of the Convention? In particular, did the domestic courts draw a distinction between the materials published by the magazine and those published by third parties or available via a hyperlink (see Magyar Jeti Zrt v. Hungary , no. 11257/16, 4 December 2018)? Did they take into account that the magazine and its editor had no control over the material on an external site? Did they take into account that the offending material had been removed before the sanction had been applied? Was the sanction necessary in a democratic society?

APPENDIX

No.

Application no.

Case name

Lodged on

Represented by

1

9578/19

OOO Redaktsiya sem na sem and Yezhova v. Russia

11/02/2019

Tumas Arsenovich MISAKYAN

2

9856/19

OOO Redaktsiya sem na sem and Yezhova v. Russia

19/07/2017

Tumas Arsenovich MISAKYAN

3

14843/19

Yezhova v. Russia

05/03/2019

Olga Vitalyevna VORONOVA

4

30266/19

OOO Redaktsiya sem na sem and Yezhova v. Russia

21/05/2019

Yekaterina Mikhaylovna SHMYGINA

5

58446/19

OOO Redaktsiya sem na sem and Yezhova v. Russia

25/10/2019

Olga Vitalyevna SHATSKIKH