Haifa court fines Facebook user for defamatory post
Judge overturns earlier decision, saying internet comments aren’t transitory and don’t get swallowed by ‘voices of the crowd’
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The Haifa District Court has fined an Israeli Facebook user NIS 10,000 ($2,800) for defamation for a Facebook comment he wrote on another person’s post.
The district court overturned a previous Magistrate’s Court ruling on the matter, which rejected the claim of Motti Marcus, who demanded NIS 100,000 compensation for a “racist and inflammatory” comment written by Amir Bohadana at the height of the 2014 Gaza conflict.
In his comment, Bohadana called Marcus “Jewish trash who wishes for the death of our soldiers,” TheMarker business daily reported on Tuesday citing the court protocols, and called on his “right wing brothers” to go to the store in which Marcus, “the supporter of Arabs,” worked.
The Haifa District Court’s Judge Yitzhak Cohen ruled that the post was defamatory.
“The calling of a person trash is testimony to the fact that the writer intends to humiliate the injured party,” and Bohadana’s words had crossed all legitimate boundaries, Cohen said, according to TheMarker.
Regarding the earlier Magistrate Court’s ruling that the post was “transitory” and had been swallowed by other voices, Cohen said that “an internet post is not more or less transient than any other publication. In addition, there is no way of knowing how much the voices of the crowd actually swallowed up the publication. What is clear is that Marcus for sure was burned and he is the subject of the insult and he is eligible for compensation.”
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