June 30, 2026
By Babette De Naeyer
Imagine this: it’s December and you live in Georgia – obviously, it’s dreadful outside. You work as one of the many cogs in the platform economy: driving around on your scooter in the pouring rain, trying to deliver warm pizzas on people’s doorsteps. Recently, your city’s mayor overhauled the urban transport policy. Its goal was to reduce car dependency and prioritise public transport. However, its implementation faced challenges, sparking significant public backlash. Overall, this new transport policy has made your already demanding job significantly more so. Now, nearing the end of your 12-hour shift, you are faced with two options: take the new, long way home – or take the old, shorter, now forbidden route. You think: ‘I’m tired, I’m risking it.’ The police catch you and fine you on the spot for breaking traffic rules – as is their job. But still, you are upset. Not just because that day’s salary is down the drain, but because the system feels rigged. Indeed, your own political authorities seem to be exempted from these new traffic rules, routinely using the bus lanes themselves – yet when you do the exact same thing, those very same authorities fine you for it.
So what do you do when you are a frustrated 25-year-old who is active on social media? You open TikTok and start to rant. Now, imagine a Europe where public officials can drag you to court and fine you for doing so. You don’t have to: with Miladze v. Georgia (19 May 2026), this is our reality.
Now that we have placed ourselves in Miladze’s shoes, let’s add some background to the sketched picture. Before starting his rant, Miladze warned viewers about the upcoming obscene language (para 9). He then launched into a critique of the new transport system, especially targeting the authorities he felt were arbitrarily exempted from the rules.
In the TikTok, he repeatedly calls the mayor, city staff, and police ‘motherfuckers’ and wishes for their uniforms to be shat on. He ends with: ‘And if the transport policy is really so great, then why don’t you use buses yourselves? Why don’t you ride the overcrowded metro? Who the hell do you think you are? You are no better than anyone else, and the beginning of your end is coming soon. Go fuck your mothers.’ (para 10).
Five days later, the police showed up on the applicant’s doorstep to summon him for a formal interview regarding the insulting TikTok. Here, things quickly escalated. Miladze insulted the officers and tried to flee on his scooter. The police, however, apprehended the applicant and placed him under administrative detention for civil disobedience. He was released two days later and fined roughly 720 euros for insulting a law-enforcement officer (paras 12-14).
A different set of proceedings was started regarding the TikTok itself. Here, the first-instance court ruled that his ‘profane rant’ was ‘verbal aggression rather than political criticism’ (para 24), stripping it of free speech protection. An additional 720-euro fine (para 21) was reduced to 180 euros on appeal (para 27). Still frustrated with this outcome, Miladze turned to Strasbourg, alleging a violation of Article 10 ECHR.
As per usual, the Court followed its classic three-step test. On legality, the Court accepted the domestic courts’ interpretation of ‘public place’ to encompass ‘cyberspace, including social media platforms and internet blogs’, calling this a ‘common legal understanding’ (para 62). The interference was also found legitimate for protecting morality and the rights of others (para 64). In classic Article 10 vein, the bulk of the judgement focuses on proportionality. The Court outlined five key elements to evaluate ‘expressive activity on social media’ (para 70).
While the TikTok video touched on public transport reform, large segments of the video contained no argument or criticism but only ‘sustained verbal aggression devoid of informational value’ (para 71). Degrading attacks on targeted individuals undermines public trust in civil servants and a heated discussion provides no ‘carte blanche’ on obscene language. The applicant’s repeated ‘kinship-based sexual profanity’ crossed the line from political criticism into ‘violent verbal aggression’ (para 73).
The statements were deemed neither satire nor artistic provocation. The Court found no ‘stylistic, rhetorical or literary purposes’ to justify such ‘coarse, aggressive and deliberately abrasive language’ (para 74).
The video was posted on a public profile on TikTok, a platform with high youth engagement, and gained over 100,000 views and 600 shares. Highlighting the reach of ‘non-voluntary algorithmic feeds’, the Court reiterated that the internet’s capacity to threaten human rights (especially privacy) can justify stricter regulation (para 75). Furthermore, the applicant’s disclaimer was insufficient to prevent the video from reaching unwilling viewers, especially minors (para 75).
The Court found that the Georgian courts carried out a sufficiently detailed, structured, and contextualised balancing exercise, seeing no need to substitute its own judgement for theirs (para 76).
The Court considered that the penalty was a minimum administrative fine, avoiding criminal or custodial measures. It added that the authorities did not seek any broader form of censorship by demanding the video’s removal or restricting the applicant’s account, meaning the sanction did not prevent his ongoing political activism (para 77).
In conclusion, the Court declared unanimously that there was no violation of Article 10 ECHR.
During admissibility, the Court noted that Miladze v. Georgia ‘raises important questions of principle’ regarding obscene speech on social media (para 47). If that is the case, Miladze is a worrisome precedent to set. Indeed, the Court’s departure from its established case law on crude language manifests across all five of its analytical criteria.
When analysing the content of the message, the Court labelled the applicant’s ‘kinship-based sexual profanities’ as ‘extremely crude and sexually explicit,’ calling them a ‘targeted and degrading attack […] on the personal dignity of the individuals concerned’ (para 73). But were they, really?
A translator’s footnote reveals that the original Georgian slang used was nabozari, which literally translates to ‘whore’s offspring’ – similar to the French ‘fils de pute’ or the Spanish ‘hijo de puta’. The translator opted for ‘motherfucker’ to more ‘accurately convey the intensity and vulgarity of the expression’ (para 10). While ‘motherfucker’ is undoubtedly vulgar, it isn’t exactly used as a literal, targeted insinuation of maternal incest. Instead, it is more commonly deployed to describe someone vicious who has made you angry, or simply to vent about a frustrating situation.
There seems to be a disconnect here between the Court’s rigid understanding of the vulgarity and its modern-day usage. Yet, the Court chose to send an unmistakable, value-laden message to internet users: it will not tolerate this language online, normalised or not. Think before thou post.
Regarding the context, it is baffling how quickly the Court dismissed the political nature of the conflict. The profanity in isolation was of course not satirical nor political. However, the rant occurred amidst widespread public discontent over the transport reform’s implementation. It specifically tapped into an ongoing public debate regarding ‘Škoda-lanes’: the perceived unfair use of bus lanes by certain government vehicles (paras 5–7). Instead of focusing on the more general political climate, the Court insisted that since the speech lacked a ‘stylistic, rhetorical or literary purpose’ it was devoid of any ‘intent or expressive value’ (para 74).
Beyond this being an intensely moralistic stance, this reasoning goes against the philosophical foundations of free speech. Speech does not need to be explicitly artistic or political to hold value: expression has value, because people have value. Artistic and political speech being considered extra valuable does not mean other types of speech are devoid of it (see Guide on Article 10, paras. 215-217). Besides, public outrage and anger over perceived injustices are a core part of the political debate.
Furthermore, vulgar language serves a distinct purpose: emotional catharsis. Free speech is necessary not just for democracy or truth-seeking, but as an aspect of human dignity and autonomy. All humans emote: voicing it prevents imploding. There are limits on how to emote, of course – hate speech and incitement to violence being the prime examples. But vulgarity usually occupies this lawful-but-awful grey zone. So, why is the Court so quick to push vulgarity into a category completely devoid of Article 10 protection?
As I have argued previously, the Court’s stricter approach to borderline speech online can be partly explained by the absence of spontaneity as a relevant contextual clue. In the past, the Court distinguished between oral and written expressions. The latter was put under stricter scrutiny because here the applicant had the ‘possibility to reformulate, refine, or retract them’ (Thomaidis v. Greece, para 28; Reznik v. Russia, para 44; Otegi Mondragón v. Spain, para 55; Nilsen and Johnsen v. Norway, para 48). Indeed, the written or spoken form served as a proxy to represent how spontaneous or deliberative expression was. Whereas written expressions are ‘the result of a thought process’ (Rivadulla Duró v. Spain, para 47), spoken words are viewed as more ‘rapid and spontaneous’ (Palomo Sánchez et al. v. Spain, para 73). The Court used to acknowledge what we all intuitively know to be true: speaking is a messier endeavour than writing.
In the digital era, this proxy has broken down. But instead of finding new legal metrics to evaluate a digital speaker’s spontaneous or deliberate intent, the Court has dropped the criterion completely. I have previously warned that offensive or satirical speech in legal grey areas would be the first to fall victim to stricter interpretations of Article 10 ECHR. Miladze proves that prediction true. Instead of assessing the speaker’s intent, the Court now fixates on a post’s potential reach and impact. And on global social media platforms, these numbers quickly skyrocket.
The Court’s specific focus on TikTok’s high youth engagement and its addictive ‘non-voluntary algorithmic feeds’ is equally telling. By focusing on these features, the Court holds an individual user responsible for systemic design issues. This attitude mirrors the broader ‘techlash’ dominating contemporary policy debates. Don’t get me wrong: a lot of backlash is justified by various structural harms. We urgently need to address social media’s impact on disinformation, youth mental health, silencing minorities, AI deepfake abuse, architectured addictiveness, and the consolidation of platform power. In light of these systemic issues, a single user uttering some ‘kinship-based sexual profanities’ seems rather trivial. Is sacrificing substantive Article 10 protection a price worth paying to fight Big Tech? I hope not.
Regarding social media’s widespread impact, it is interesting how the Court subtly acknowledges social media platforms as public spaces when assessing the quality of the law (see paras 61-63). Based on their own precedent, this was not such an obvious assumption to make. In Google v. Russia, Judge Pavli’s concurring opinion already called for an explicit overturn of the Appleby-doctrine in the context of social media (see analysis here). Yet, the Court is only shyly referring to it here. Such a significant doctrinal shift could have been announced with greater fanfare rather than a quiet endorsement of the domestic courts’ reasoning.
But alas, this is the ‘age of subsidiarity’ after all. The Court has grown rather comfortable in relying on process-based review when balancing competing rights, such as privacy and expression. While subsidiarity has its merits, Miladze highlights a major risk: the erosion of substantive human rights protections.
In Miladze, the domestic courts earned Strasbourg’s stamp of approval by citing some of its case law, namely Peradze v. Georgia and Uj v. Hungary. Although both of those cases involving vulgar speech resulted in Article 10 violations, the Georgian courts distinguished Miladze by arguing that, unlike the applicants in those precedents, Miladze’s rant lacked any ‘stylistic purpose’ (para 30).
The Court then copy-pasted this exact reasoning into its own assessment, concluding that the applicant’s speech did not serve ‘any stylistic, rhetorical or literary purposes’ (para 74). This demonstrates how a procedural review can quietly morph into a substantive one. By adopting the domestic courts’ restrictive logic, Strasbourg creates a more limiting Article 10 precedent. If the Court’s core mission is protecting liberal democracy, it must continue to rigorously scrutinise authorities who penalise citizens for venting about politics.
This brings us to the Court’s analysis of the severity of the sanction. Their determination that the sanction was proportionate was solely based on the end result: a (relatively!) low administrative fine. But as the saying goes: it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey – and Miladze’s has been quite a bumpy road… The police unexpectedly showed up at his house for questioning. This heated interaction escalated into (two-day!) administrative detention and (two separate!) judicial proceedings with multiple court hearings. Instead of just assessing the final monetary amount, we must look at what happens before paying up. What about the time, resources, and emotional distress a citizen endures when forced to defend themselves against public authorities for swearing in public?
Particularly curious is the Court’s approval of the Georgian authorities’ decision to impose a fine instead of seeking the removal of the TikTok in question. Instead of applauding this approach, shouldn’t this have triggered some reflection? Having your video taken down – which nowadays can be internally and externally appealed under EU law (Arts. 20 and 21 DSA) and by Council of Europe recommendation (paras. 88–92 CM/Rec(2026)4) – is a far less intrusive interference than being hauled in for police questioning and dragged to court. Besides, if the video contained such deeply offensive language and TikTok is filled with impressionable youths in dire need of protection, wouldn’t simply removing it be the more appropriate, agile solution?
I am speculating here, but there is an alternative possibility. Perhaps the authorities did request the video’s removal, but TikTok refused because they considered it to be neither illegal content nor a violation of their Community Guidelines. Indeed, TikTok’s ToS clearly specify: ‘We recognize that public figures face greater attention and some content about them may serve the public interest. As a result, we allow more critical commentary about public figures than private figures.’ However, the ‘most harmful’ content – such as doxing, violent threats, hate speech, and sexual harassment or exploitation – will still be removed. Maybe TikTok did not consider Miladze’s criticism about public figures to be ‘most harmful’ and therefore refused to remove it. This would illustrate how online platforms can serve as an additional shield against government overreach – and why sufficient safeguards against government orders under Article 9 DSA are so crucial.
Lastly, the Court’s considerations regarding the chilling effect are deeply problematic. The Court concludes ‘no harm, no foul’ since the applicant remains active on social media. But the individual dimension is only one part of the equation. What about the collective chilling effect these penalties create? What about other users silencing themselves out of fear that their borderline speech will provoke government intervention? Social media is becoming increasingly parasocial: the vast majority of users no longer participate, but only passively consume content from the happy few algorithmically favored speakers. In this day and age, the Court should be protecting diverse voices – not contributing to scaring them away from the digital public square.
Ultimately, Miladze is a tough pill to swallow for avid Article 10 followers. Perhaps it doesn’t sit entirely right within the Court either and we will be treated to a Grand Chamber referral. If not, let’s hope Miladze digests quickly, quietly, and without second servings. In its next judgement on crude language, the Court would do well to recognise that emotional catharsis in political debates holds real expressive value, and to restore spontaneity as a valid contextual clue.
In recent years, human rights scholarship has fixated on positive obligations regarding fundamental rights. But we must not forget the classic, negative aspect: the state cannot interfere unless strictly necessary. When analysing the scope of Article 10, people tend to ask: ‘Does someone have a right to say this?’ But that is the wrong question. The correct one is: ‘Does the government have a right to interfere and sacrifice our collective liberty for this?’
Strasbourg falls into this precise pitfall in Miladze. By expanding the ‘no-go zone’ of permissible expression, the Court reduces the minimum standards of Article 10. If using a few swear words in a spontaneous political rant is off the table, what’s next? After all, these are – politically, economically, socially, and ecologically – tense times we are living in. Can’t I be a little upset? Get it off my chest? Vent about it online, or scream it in the streets? When all is said and done, am I allowed to cry?
Strasbourg Observers is an academic blog that discusses recent developments at the European Court of Human Rights. The editorial team of Strasbourg Observers is based at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and the Centre for Government and Law of Hasselt University.
Strasbourg Observers would not be possible without the valued work of countless guest bloggers. Visit the “Contact” page on our website to find out how to become one!
2 Comments
Reading the article, one is left with the impression that Strasbourg has fundamentally rewritten Article 10. Yet the Miladze judgment itself appears far less revolutionary. It follows a fairly orthodox proportionality analysis, examining the content of the speech, its context, the characteristics of the platform, the domestic courts’ reasoning, and the proportionality of the sanction. One may disagree with the balance ultimately struck. But disagreement with the outcome is not, in itself, evidence of a doctrinal shift.
The “emotional catharsis” argument is quite perplexing. Swearing may well provide emotional release. So do countless other ways of venting frustration – from shouting into the air and pounding a punching bag to drafting an angry message that is never sent. The fact that something is cathartic does not, by itself, elevate it into a constitutional value. Article 10 protects freedom of expression, not emotional hygiene.
As for subsidiarity, the author seems to regard Strasbourg’s reliance on the domestic courts’ balancing exercise as inherently suspicious. But subsidiarity has long since become an established feature of the Court’s methodology – one need only glance at the Preamble to the Convention. The real objection appears to be not that the Court deferred, but that it deferred to a conclusion the author dislikes.
The same applies to the chilling-effect argument. The article largely assumes a widespread chilling effect without demonstrating it. The invisible army of future self-censoring speakers conveniently appears precisely where the doctrinal argument begins to lose traction. A chilling effect is a serious constitutional concern, not a rhetorical wildcard to be played whenever the proportionality analysis proves unpersuasive.
Towards the end, the discussion unfortunately drifts from legal analysis into counterfactual storytelling. Perhaps the authorities sought the removal of the video. Perhaps TikTok refused. Perhaps the Digital Services Act would have produced a different outcome (if it applies to the Georgian authorities at all). Perhaps platforms are becoming the real guardians of free speech. Perhaps. But the real question is have any of these conjectures formed part of the factual or legal matrix before the Court?
In the end, the piece reads less as a demonstration that the Strasbourg Court has departed from its established Article 10 case-law than as an advocacy brief arguing urging the Court to move towards a more libertarian conception of speech.
Dear David,
I’d thank you for taking the time to comment on my work, but since the text sounds very AI-y, I’m assuming it wasn’t too much hassle. As a teacher anno 2026, I have to dedicate a lot of energy in engaging with paragraph after paragraph of my students’ fancy-sounding-but-ultimately-superficial AI-generated contrarianism. So, I hope you can forgive me for not making the effort to do that here. Besides, if I now point out where I disagree with your(/Claude’s?/Gemini’s?) arguments and you then pass those on — does that not sort of defeat my whole point of not feeling like conversing with it?
Kind regards,
Babette De Naeyer