The line that decides almost everything
An opinion — this restaurant is unpleasant — attracts very broad protection, even when bluntly expressed. An assertion of fact — the owner stole from me — is protected only if it is true or carefully substantiated. Nearly every dispute is fought on that boundary, and the practical rule that follows works everywhere: criticise the service, not the person, and assert only what you can prove.
Three very different regimes
Some countries treat damage to reputation as a criminal offence, with complaints, investigations and in a few places imprisonment. Others have made it a purely civil matter, resolved through damages and orders to remove. A third group protects expression so broadly that claims rarely succeed, and penalises proceedings brought to silence critics. The same message can therefore be unremarkable in one country and criminally risky in another.
On online harassment, systems are converging
Almost everywhere now covered: repeated harassment, including where it comes from a group and each participant posts only once; sharing intimate images without consent, even where the recording was consensual; threatening to share them; digital impersonation; and publishing someone's personal details to expose them.
Platforms are faster than courts
Large regulatory blocs have imposed concrete duties on platforms: accessible reporting, reasoned decisions on removal, an internal appeal, and short deadlines for the most serious content. Several countries have created authorities that can order removal themselves. In practice the effective order is almost always the same: report first, litigate second.
Evidence first, and quickly
Capture the full page with the address and date, note the context and any witnesses, and save everything before anything is deleted. Many systems impose very short deadlines — sometimes three months from publication or from identifying the author. Do not spend that period on informal exchanges, and remember that your own replies become part of the file too.
The law country by country
The legal framework, the procedure, the time limits and the costs differ from one country to another. Each country below has a detailed page: governing texts, key facts, the actual procedure, costs, where to go and the traps to avoid.
Select a country to open its detailed page.
