Restrictions on online content are generally transparent and grounded in the law. The Gambling Act, one of the few laws that imposes restrictions, requires domestic and foreign gambling websites to obtain a special license.
Unlicensed websites are subject to blocking by the MTA (see B1). The MTA’s list of blocked websites is transparent and available to the public.
Under the Information Society Services Act and pursuant to the DSA, which fully entered into force in February 2024,
service providers are generally not liable for illegal content transmitted by users, with limited exceptions. Online platforms are liable for illegal content if they fail to remove or restrict access to such content once they become aware of it.
Previous actions have reinforced intermediary liability in certain circumstances. In 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (EctHR) upheld a controversial 2009 Estonian Supreme Court decision in the case of Delfi v. Estonia, which established intermediary liability for third-party defamatory comments on news sites.
In December 2021, the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (2019/790) was adopted into Estonian law.
The directive, among other things, establishes ancillary copyright for digital publishers and makes “online content sharing service providers” partially liable for copyright violations on their platforms.
In January 2024, it was reported that the Ministry of Justice sought to amend Estonian copyright law to allow the TTJA, under certain circumstances, to order ISPs to block websites in Estonia that violate intellectual property rights, even if such content is hosted outside the country.
The proposal was not enacted by the end of the coverage period.
Estonia adopted the EU Audio-Visual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) (2018/1808)
in March 2022.
The AVMSD requires “video-sharing platform services” to take “appropriate measures” to protect minors from content “which may impair their physical, mental or moral development,” and the general public from content involving child sexual abuse, racism, or xenophobia as well as content inciting hatred, terrorism, or violence.
According to the AVMSD, service providers must apply for a license to operate, submit reports on the structure of the program, and disclose their ownership structure. The regulatory changes mainly affect Estonian audiovisual media service providers.
The Information Society Services Act, originally enacted in 2004, allows the government to impose unspecified restrictions on foreign-based information society services. Under the law, restrictions on such services are allowed in cases “justified by morality, public order, national security, public health and consumer protection.”
The law places further conditions on these restrictions, including that they be imposed on a specific service, that they are “proportionate to its purpose,” and that Estonian authorities appeal to the applicable country to impose a restriction before doing so themselves.
The Information Society Services Act permits authorities to block online content in certain circumstances, particularly in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Amendments to the act that took effect in August 2022 empower the TTJA to order service providers to block domains containing material that “incites hatred, violence or discrimination” or “incites or justifies war crimes” when such measures are necessary for national security and no other avenues to counter the spread of the information exist.
According to a government press release, the amendments were meant to “ensure the existence of domestic measures” to restrict content that “is used to shape the attitudes of people living or staying in Estonia as part of informational influence activities directed against Estonia.”
The law also amended the Cybersecurity Act to update Estonia’s cybersecurity framework (see C8).
Decisions to restrict content can be appealed to the courts. In July 2023, the Administrative Court of Tallinn ruled that the TTJA had the legal mandate to block Russian state-linked domains and television stations, and that the constitutional right to free expression was not harmed by the decision.
According to Section 51 of Estonia’s Media Services Act, the TTJA has the right to prevent the retransmission of a foreign audiovisual media service if it has “harmed the public health and the security of society, including national security and defense.”
An audiovisual media service is defined by the law as one “with the main purpose of providing informative, educational or entertainment programs to the public via an electronic communication network.”