Twitter accounts contents protected by freedom of speech

By Estudio Chaloupka

In March 2015, E.A.C. sued Google Inc. and those responsible for the publication and hosting of certain blogs, sites and Twitter accounts, and requested an injunction to prevent access and/or remove and/or delete and/or block such sites and accounts. E.A.C. also asked for Google to cease associating or relating his name to the word "sick", and to any other pejorative or negative adjective. In his claim, the plaintiff argued that those web sites and web pages had solely been created to disrepute him, describing him as a stalker, pedophile and sadistic psychopath, and further reported that an anonymous Twitter account that used his name without authorization had been created to publish negative contents to slander him.

A first instance ruling rejected the claim on account that same did not fulfill requirements for the granting of an injunction measure, and that the information "had not been created by Google, but instead amounted to insulting expressions or opinions published in blogs and Twitter by anonymous third parties". The ruling also highlighted "the fact that seeking and receiving information by any means is contemplated by freedom of speech rights" (Law 26,032). E.A.C. appealed the decision, claiming that the identified sites and accounts revealed personal data without his consent, displayed false assertions, infringed his right to privacy and damaged his good name and honor.  He further argued that his claim should be admitted, for Google owns the search engine that indexes -and reports among its first results- those sites and accounts.

Nevertheless, based on a Supreme Court ruling of October 2014 (re. Rodriguez, Maria Belen vs. Google Inc.), in May 18, 2015,  Civil and Commercial Federal Court of Appeals, Division III, upheld the first instance decision. In this case, and based on prior court decisions, the Court sustained that the contents of the web sites and web pages are protected by freedom of speech rights, and argued that this doctrine is also applicable to Twitter because, by its very nature and function, "it is an appropriate and conducive means to express ideas and opinions".

Shielded by that argument, the Court of Appeals dismissed the injunction, except for the claim referring to the association of the plaintiff's name with the word "sick", and stated that the request for Google to prevent access, remove, delete and/or block the sites, pages and accounts "is an unjustified restriction of freedom of speech".