Germany's top court, the Federal Court of Justice, ruled on Tuesday that Internet giant Google must delete automatic search suggestions if people consider them defamatory. The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung welcomes the decision: "The Court of Justice has once more drawn the line: the Internet is neither a legal vacuum, nor can Google do as it pleases. ... Certainly, one will not be able to demand that Google, with its brilliant and global business model, immediately recognise and remove all possible infringements. Nevertheless the Court of Justice very rightly decided that where there is sound proof, it must remove defamatory links. Otherwise insults and false claims will travel around the world unhindered. Responsibility also exists on the Web. If you open a business that at the same time represents a source of danger, you can be held legally responsible. That's as true on the Internet as it is in real life." (15/05/2013)

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Ahead of the local elections in Latvia on June 1, the TV debates began on Monday, taking the place of the TV election commercials that are banned in the month leading up to the vote. The daily Diena criticises the lacklustre discussions, which it says neglected the relevant issues: "When they were asked about their election pledges the candidates answered without any sign of emotion in their faces. They only became active when the discussion turned to the 'really important issue' of whether or not the gay parade should be allowed in the centre of Riga. ... The candidates seemed non-committal and absent when the subject of the economy, the facts and figures arose. However their faces became surprisingly animated when questions were asked about the Capital of Culture 2014 [Latvia's Riga along with Umeå in Sweden]." (15/05/2013)

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Hungary's media authorities fined the right-wing conservative daily Magyar Hírlap 250,000 forint (roughly 850 euros) on Monday. In an aggressive commentary published by the paper in January, Zsolt Bayer had called the Roma animals, among other things. Writing in the left-liberal weekly paper Heti Világgazdaság, the journalist Elek Tokfalvi sees no point to the fine because in his view it curtails press freedom: "Twenty-one years after the end of communist censorship, a newspaper has been punished for saying what it thinks. Have Zsolt Bayer and Magyar Hírlap committed a crime? No. Has anyone influenced by the article committed a crime? No. (And if yes, why have there been no prosecutions?) ... The fine isn't going to improve the situation, either. Bayer's reputation has not suffered among the right-wing camp, on the contrary. ... Press censorship has been reintroduced in Hungary." (09/05/2013)

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Local elections will take place in Latvia on July 1. Only last year the Latvian parliament passed a law banning election commercials on TV in the 30 days before the vote. That does nothing to alter the fact that those in power have an advantage over the opposition, the national-conservative daily Neatkarīgā writes: "There were no televised ads in 1933, but that didn't prevent Hitler from coming to power. With the new electoral law that forbids electoral advertising 30 days prior to elections, only one of the parties' brainwashing tools has been taken away. But they still have a huge arsenal for similar manipulation at their disposal. For example, members of the governing party can exploit their positions in other ways and simply appear as prime minister, minister, member of parliament or mayor on television." (08/05/2013)

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Shortly before Croatia joins the EU on July 1, there is no sign of Euphoria in the country. In response the public broadcaster HTV has aired its new quiz show EUnigma, which is meant to promote the EU among viewers. The 190,000 euros in subsidies received from the EU are a particular source of pride. That doesn't stop the show from being a total embarrassment, the left-leaning daily Novi List writes: "Technically the programme is pretty much on the level of a slapdash kid's show from the 1970s. The plywood boards of the set are so poorly put together that you can see every nail. ... It's no help that the team of writers, after no end of uncreative years copying licensed shows, has once again finally come up with an idea of its own. ... No one had any time, and everything was thrown together at the last minute. If the entire station had been behind the project instead of sticking its hands in its pockets, the result would have been more acceptable. But this production is about as good as a cardboard Eiffel Tower." (03/05/2013)

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Only one in seven people worldwide live in countries with a free press, according to a recent report by the US organisation Freedom House. But also in countries like Finland, press freedom can't be taken for granted, the liberal newspaper Helsingin Sanomat writes on World Press Freedom Day: "According to the definition in the report, freedom means that the political decision-makers are continually monitored by the public, that the safety of journalists is guaranteed, that the state influences the work of journalists as little as possible and that neither judicial nor economic means are used to put the media under pressure. The list is long. A thorough reading shows that countries like Finland, which belong to the elite in an international comparison, must also watch zealously over press freedom. It is the task of the press to monitor the activities of the powerful and expose the mistakes of the authorities. Unfortunately, all too often here in Finland too we are confronted with demands to revoke the protection of sources." (03/05/2013)

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After holding them captive for 838 days, Somali pirates released two Danish hostages in exchange for a ransom on Tuesday. The left-liberal daily Politiken berates several Danish media for having helped the pirates achieve their goal by conducting interviews with the hostages. "The media face a difficult dilemma when cynical criminals try to exploit our journalistic obligation to tell people what is happening. The hostages were forced to cooperate. But we can decided for ourselves whether we are willing to allow ourselves to be used by criminals. The kidnappers also called Politiken and we were offered the chance to talk to the hostages. But we decided not to write about this. … Now that the hostages are safe, there must be a discussion about what happened. ... The criticism is directed against those media, led by [tabloid] Ekstra Bladet, that allowed themselves to become the Somali pirates' Danish media partners." (02/05/2013)

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The Munich Regional Court has redistributed by lottery the 50 press seats for the NSU trial. Turkish Media, some of which had taken legal action against the initial distribution, are now represented, while Germany's largest national newspapers are for the most part not among the lucky ones. After itself landing a spot, the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk says it's time to put an end to the debate: "There was only one good reason why the entire country had to wait three weeks while the argument over which media could be present at the trial was resolved: namely the fact that nine out of ten of the NSU's victims were of foreign origin. And there was a danger that not a single Turkish or Greek journalist would be granted a place in the courtroom - which is simply too small. This problem has now been dealt with. ... If we journalists continue to sneer, wrangle and complain, we will divert public attention from the victims and the perpetrators to ourselves. ... Now the court must turn its attention to the alleged killers and the crimes they purportedly committed." (30/04/2013)

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