The law on freedom of expression in the media, which took effect in January, also applies to material published on the Internet.
Under the law, Internet publications must have an editor who is ultimately responsibile for the web pages and their content.
As many discussion forums do not edit the actual discussion in any way, the responsibility for the content of the contributions is left to the writers themselves.
Ministry of Justice official Laura Nordenstreng sees the question of administrator responsibility as a difficult one. She says that the question is ultimately one of freedom of expression, and that the threshold for imposing limits on that freedom should be fairly high.
"An administrator has the obligation to react if officials or users give feedback on racist comments, for instance."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 21.4.2004
