Insulting a group or individual in social media posts can lead to penalties up to jail time for the person sharing the post. On the other hand, social media users can be punished at the same rate by quoting an insulting post made by another user.
Today, another decision has been made on this issue, especially concerning Twitter users. The decision to prosecute the user, who had previously retweeted another insulting tweet from his own account, was overturned by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the user’s retweeted post was sufficient evidence for an indictment for insult.
The retweet is enough to file an indictment for defamation:
In the aforementioned file, the plaintiff filed a criminal complaint about the post made by another account from his own account, which included the statements “filthy, despicable, indecent, liar, arms smuggler, ugly, disbelieving, dishonest, bribery, slobbling, dishonest”. The Public Prosecutor’s Office decided not to prosecute on the accusation. The objection to the decision was also rejected by the 3rd Criminal Judgeship of Peace.
The file came to the agenda of the 18th Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, with the notification of the Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office to overturn it for the benefit of the law. As a result of the investigation, the department pointed out that the suspect’s Twitter account with the name “@…” on which the name and surname is written, mentioning the plaintiff, provided sufficient evidence for an indictment to be issued, and overturned the decision of the local court.
In the decision, the Supreme Court said, “Whether the suspect’s action is proven or not, it should be determined as a result of the discussion and evaluation of all the evidence together by the court. According to the statements made, the decision not to prosecute the suspect and the decision of the authority regarding the rejection of the objection given as a result of the objection to this decision is unlawful. made statements.
Saying “Retweet doesn’t mean I approve the post” doesn’t save:
The Supreme Court has made similar decisions before. Making a statement about a similar decision made last year, Faculty of Law Faculty Member Prof. Dr. Ender Ethem Atay used the following statements about the decision:
“In the penal code, individuals are prohibited from doing certain attitudes and behaviors. Those who commit the crime of insult via social media are primarily guilty of tweeting. The 18th Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation also saw the person who spread this tweet as having participated in the crime in the same way. His previous decisions have already been in this direction. In other words, if an act was committed by someone and someone else spread the same act in the same way and methods, that act is considered to have been committed.
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