of the name of a complainant in regard to sex offenses (sec. 352 of the Penal Law), or a publication
in contravention of the provisions of sec. 34 of the Adoption of Children Law, 5741-1981 (which
prohibits publishing the identity of various actors related to the adoption procedure)). In regard to
these provisions, the Cyber Department noted in its preliminary response that it only “informs”
(the providers) of the fact that the offending content does not meet the restrictions under the
relevant law or a judicial order issued thereunder.
6.
In their preliminary response, the Respondents emphasized that the statutory enforcement
track is not comprehensive, inasmuch as there is currently no coercive enforcement track that
would allow the Cyber Department to act on the internet (subject to a court order) for the removal
of additional publications that constitute other criminal offences, among them: content that incites
violence, terror, or racism, or content that amounts to sexual harassment and threats. In this regard,
it should be noted that the Respondents and others tried to advance legislation that would have
granted the courts broader authority to remove harmful content published on the net, but for various
reasons, those legislative initiatives did not come to fruition (see: Prevention of Committing
Crimes by Means of the Internet (Removal of Content) Bill, 5778-2018; and Removal of Content
from the Internet whose Publication Constitutes an Offense Bill, 5777-2016).
This need, and other reasons that will be presented below, led to the creation of an
additional, voluntary enforcement track, which is the focus of the petition before the Court.
The voluntary enforcement track
7.
The absence of general, explicit legal provisions granting authority to a judicial instance to
order the removal of a publication that amounts to a prima facie criminal offense (beyond the Law,
which was itself enacted only on July 26, 2017) led the State Attorney’s office to formulate
another, additional conception for criminal enforcement that focuses upon the offense rather than
its perpetrator. In this framework, it concentrates its efforts upon network platform operators. This
activity is the focus of the petition. The term network platform is a codeword for a variety of civil
bodies, mostly very powerful multinational corporations that operate a variety of frameworks for
net activity, including: