36 MAGYAR JETI ZRT v. HUNGARY JUDGMENT - SEPARATE OPINION applicant company’s website because that article itself included a hyperlink to the allegedly defamatory video. Conclusion 26. In sum, the Web is not intended, as a technology, to function in the way the respondent Government states, where spreading information via a hyperlink is itself always a “thought-content”38. This approach begs the question of how people are to convey information across the estimated trillions of web pages in existence today and countless future pages if doing so can give rise to liability. It is too burdensome, and in many cases impossible, for people to make a legal determination as to whether each and every hyperlinked content is defamatory or otherwise unlawful. If such a burden were to be imposed automatically on journalists, by way of an objective liability regime, it would stifle the freedom of the press. To paraphrase the words of Berners-Lee, hyperlinks are critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity – and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, they need defending39. It is indeed remarkable that, by finding a violation of Article 10 of the Convention, the present judgment has done just that. Observations of the respondent Government, paragraph 20. Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web, cited above: “The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity – and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending”. 38 39