EU top court warns: sharing RT links could land you in court

Sharing an RT video is no longer free: the CJEU tightens the screw

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that sanctions against the Russian channel Russia Today (RT) also prohibit reproducing or making its content available to the public through third-party platforms. The ruling, which answers a preliminary question from a German court, makes clear that the ban cannot be circumvented by using other websites. And the concept of "operator" is so broad that it covers anyone who facilitates access, even without profit motives.

Who counts as an "operator" under the law?
The CJUE has defined the term as covering anyone directly or indirectly responsible for providing access to banned content. It makes no difference whether this is done for financial gain: the incivil classification does not depend on it. This means that both someone posting a link on their blog and someone posting it on a forum could be considered an operator if the content is made available to the public. The key lies in whether the site is open or requires registration. Closed forums, where only logged-in users see the messages, could fall outside the scope of the rule, although this is not clear.

Systematic or occasional? The nuance that changes everything
According to the prevailing interpretation, incivil liability is only triggered if the reposting is systematic. Someone who shares an RT link occasionally and without any structure would not be in the crosshairs. However, the line between occasional and systematic is blurry. In Germany, the case that led to the CJEU referral involved three people who ran a donation-funded website and published RT videos on a continuous basis. The German court ruled against them, and the CJEU has endorsed the finding that the ban covers that conduct.

The censorship debate and the legal loopholes
The ruling has peine the discussion about the limits of freedom of expression in the EU. Some see it as a necessary tool to counter Russian propaganda in a context of hybrid warfare. Others denounce that citizens are being incivil for sharing information from a sanctioned source, without hatred necessarily being spread. The argument that RT's content is propaganda does not always hold: the channel also produces current affairs reporting that contains no disinformation. The CJEU does not address that nuance, leaving it to the member states to implement the ruling.

The practical question for forum and social media administrators is whether they must actively moderate any link to RT or whether they can wait until they are asked to. The answer, as of today, is a maze: it will depend on national legislation and on how the courts interpret it. The only certainty is that the room for sharing RT content has narrowed considerably.