The Higher Regional Court of Dresden recently ruled (judgment of 07.02.2017 – 4 U 1419/16) that merely „sharing“ on social networks does not constitute attribution of the statements made in the post.

„Sharing“ alone does not include a rating

The dissemination of contributions that violate personal rights should – as everyone should be aware – generally be refrained from.
This is because even undistanced statements by third parties can be attributed to the disseminator if he has adopted them as his own in this sense.

However, caution is required when assuming such appropriation.
After all, anyone who „shares“ a post on a social network does not necessarily share the opinion expressed therein.
Rather, „sharing“ is merely intended to draw the attention of network friends to the content of other users.
This does not constitute an evaluation:

The „Share“ function is an existing option on the platform for pointing out private content from other users without this also being associated with a rating.
This function is regularly used by users to quickly spread content „virally“.

In contrast to the „like“ function, the „share“ function in itself is not considered to have any significance beyond the distribution of the posting.

Beware of commenting on „shared“ posts

However, the situation is different if a post is also commented on in the course of „sharing“.
For example, a Facebook user shared a post in which Adolf Hitler was compared to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He wrote „Too worthy of consideration to take it down“ and was punished by the Higher Regional Court of Dresden: the Senate saw the comment as an „urgent reading recommendation“.
The average recipient of the „shared“ contribution could only understand this as identification with the content of the shared positions.

The assessment as „worthy of consideration“ shows that the Facebook user had seriously considered the content of the „shared“ statements and compared them with his own positions.
As a result, this discussion was so important to him that he felt morally obliged to draw the attention of his friends on the network to the article.
The user thus adopted the positions expressed.

Attribution only with positive comments

The Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main has already ruled on a similar matter (judgment of 26.11.2016 – 16 U 64/15).
The Hessian judges also saw the uncommented „sharing“ as merely a reference to the content of other users, but not as identification.

So if you want to make sure you don’t make yourself liable, you should refrain from commenting when „sharing“ – or think carefully about which messages are actually worth spreading.