A blogger who becomes aware of defamatory comments posted by third parties on their site is required to take prompt action to remove them. Failure to act after becoming aware of the unlawful content may, in fact, give rise to liability for damages.

This principle was reaffirmed by the Court of Cassation in Order No. 22999 of 10 July 2026, concerning a dispute arising from a number of disparaging comments posted beneath a blog post that questioned the reliability of a newspaper article.

In the case in question, the blog operator had left the comments online even after becoming aware of them, only removing them once legal proceedings had commenced. The trial judges had therefore ordered him to pay compensation for the non-pecuniary damage suffered by the journalist, quantified at 23,000 euros on the basis of the criteria established by the Court of Milan in defamation cases.

The Court of Cassation upheld the decision, clarifying that bloggers are not under a general obligation to carry out prior checks on user-submitted content. Liability arises, however, when the operator, having become aware of the defamatory nature of the content, fails to remove it promptly, thereby allowing its further dissemination.

According to the Court, knowingly allowing the defamatory comment to remain online is, in terms of liability, equivalent to a form of endorsement or, at any rate, complicity in its dissemination. The freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the ECHR does not, therefore, preclude the obligation to take action after the event to protect the reputation of others.

This ruling forms part of a now well-established line of case law, in both civil and criminal matters, which draws a clear distinction between the absence of a duty of prior monitoring and the obligation to remove content once actual knowledge of the unlawful act has been acquired.