Pour la justice française, Facebook is not a public place

For the Court of Cassation, comments made on Facebook are therefore not likely to be the subject of proceedings for defamation or public insults.

Internet users who insult their boss or their neighbor on their Facebook page will not necessarily be attacked for defamation. En effet, in a judgment rendered this Friday 12 avril, the Court of Cassation considers that a page on the Facebook network is not necessarily a public place.

However, two conditions are imposed on the user : the terms used must only be accessible to people approved by the account holder and a few in number.

In January 2012, a French criminal court sentenced an employee to 500 suspended fine for insulting his employer on the social network. The judgment handed down yesterday by the Court of Cassation could well make this case law obsolete in certain cases.

“This is an important judgment because it sets a precedent and establishes a principle which must henceforth be respected by other judicial courts”, explain Anthony Bem, lawyer specializing in Internet law, interviewed by France 24.

This decision does not only concern the American giant. It should also apply to all social networks where the Internet user addresses people he or she has chosen and where one can “establish a closed account”. The microblogging network Twitter would therefore not be affected by this decision.

Learn more at http://www.atlantico.fr/atlantico-light/pour-justice-francaise-facebook-est-pas-lieu-public-696866.html#hS6riv1wq2PMtAjw.99

source http://www.atlantico.fr