The Constitutional Court has denied protection to journalist Antonio Javier Rodríguez Naranjo, thus confirming the sentence imposed by the Supreme Court for violating the right to honor of journalist Máximo Pradera, whom he described as an “abuser” in a tweet and in a interview, “with the knowledge that what was transmitted was false or with manifest contempt for the falsity of the news, substituting an objective truth, empirically verifiable, for a subjective truth”. The sentence imposed by the Supreme Court in this process was compensation of 5,000 euros, “the impairment of the right to honor suffered by the complainant, in the legitimate exercise of the right to information, cannot be protected.”
The sentence – for which Judge María Luisa Balaguer was the rapporteur – explains that Naranjo published a message on his Twitter account on May 7, 2014 in which he said: “I have been physically and verbally attacked, with witnesses and in the study of ‘@Juliaenlaonda’, by Máximo Pradera. After three weeks of harassment. He adds that he referred to Pradera – with whom he shared radio talk shows – as an “abuser” in an interview that served as the basis “for the article published in the newspaper ‘Periodista Digital’ that same day under the headline ‘Aggressions outside the microphone of Julia in the Onda’, with the subtitle ‘Antonio Naranjo accuses Pradera of being an ‘abuser’ for attacking him on Onda Cero with his fist raised’, followed by the following subtitle: ‘Atresmedia should not have an abuser as a talk show host’”.
(XI) I have been physically and verbally assaulted, with witnesses and in the study of @Juliaenlaonda, by Maximo Pradera. After three weeks of harassment.
– Antonio Naranjo (@AntonioRNaranjo) May 7, 2014
The Provincial Court of Madrid first and the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court later considered that these demonstrations constituted a violation of the right to honor of Máximo Pradera, which led Antonio Naranjo to file an appeal for protection before the Constitutional Court. The judgment of the Court of Guarantees rejects this petition, estimating that “the physical aggression never occurred, and the fact that the appellant invokes that said statement constituted a personal opinion of what happened confirms this circumstance.”
The resolution adds that “it is manifest” that the appellant “has communicated a series of circumstances, factual and non-factual, with the knowledge that what was transmitted was false or with manifest contempt for the falsity of the news, substituting an objective truth, empirically verifiable , for a subjective truth”. The court adds that “as regards the issuance of value judgments, the communicator is also required to respect good faith.”
The Constitutional Court considers that “there does not have to be” a “discouraging effect of a sanction of the type questioned here, merely civil, on the exercise of freedom of information in social networks.” It adds that, “on the contrary, it can form a message addressed to all users that the publication of false information on the Internet, more specifically on social networks, and in particular by communication professionals, is a lack of attention to the duties and responsibilities that bind them”.
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The sentence also underlines that “social networks act on the axes of immediacy and speed in the dissemination of content, the difficulty of establishing filters a priori in that dissemination, and the potentially wide-and difficult-to-control transmission of its content.” He adds that “this supposes an exponentially greater capacity to influence public opinion than that of the traditional media, which, moreover, also use social networks to disseminate their content, and even to manage the times and capacity impact of certain information.
The Constitutional Court considers that these characteristics entail “a greater risk of violation of the personality rights of third parties.” The court also reasons that “although the violation of the right to honour, for example, of the recipient of an insulting expression contained in a tweet exists since the message has been shared, it is not the same as said message having been read by a person or by a million, because the public image of the holder of the right to honor, and the perception of that image by third parties, has not been affected with the same intensity in either case”.
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