The Constitutional Court has established in its ruling 52/2026 some of the limits between freedom of expression and freedom of information on social networks. The Plenary has upheld the conviction for a crime of defamation with publicity against a man who posted accusations on Facebook against two National Police officers without having previously verified several of the claims he disseminated.
The ruling, issued on July 8, 2026 and published in the BOE on August 3, dismisses the amparo appeal presented by Gabriel de la Mora González and maintains the resolutions of the ordinary courts that had confirmed his conviction.
What the convicted person published
The case dates back to September 2015, when the then lawyer and councilor of the Salamanca City Council published a comment on his Facebook profile about an altercation that occurred during a police intervention.
In the post, he attributed to two identifiable officers, among other behaviors, having committed torture, illegal detentions, and falsehoods, in addition to accusing them of manipulating evidence and obtaining a false medical report. The comment was shared at least 16 times.
The courts considered that those statements constituted imputations of criminal acts and that they had not been verified with the required diligence.
Opinion is not the same as stating facts
The resolution distinguishes between opinions or value judgments, protected by freedom of expression, and statements about facts that can be verified and that affect the honor of third parties.
In this second case, the Constitutional Court recalls that freedom of information requires a minimum of diligence in verifying what is published. In this matter, the appellant did not verify several of the most serious accusations before disseminating them and later even acknowledged having mistakenly identified the police officers to whom he attributed some of those facts.
The key, therefore, is not that a publication is made on a social network, but rather what is asserted, with what degree of certainty, and what verifications have been made before presenting it as a fact.
Facebook is not exempt from the rules
The Court also takes into account the public nature of the publication. The previous courts considered that Facebook was a medium capable of multiplying the dissemination of an accusation and that publication on an open social network could reach a wide audience.
The ruling thus upholds the conviction for defamation with publicity. The affected party had initially been sentenced to 15 months of fines, in addition to compensating 6,000 euros to each of the two police officers and assuming other costs arising from the procedure.
A ruling with a dissenting vote
The decision was not unanimous. Judge Ramón Sáez Valcárcel, to whom Juan Carlos Campo adhered, issued a dissenting vote in which he argued that the appeal should have been upheld.
In his opinion, the criminal conviction violated freedom of expression and constituted a disproportionate response to the analyzed conduct.
The majority doctrine leaves, in any case, a clear idea for social networks: to express an opinion on a public action is protected by freedom of expression, but presenting serious and criminal facts as true requires having acted with the necessary diligence to verify them.