The verdict against Cissi Wallin for gross slander has no great significance for the metoo movement and everything important and good it has done. However, it has an impact on the development of the media public, where freedom of expression is exercised.

During the 2010s, the world received a new mass media - without ethical rules, without publicist principles but with an sometimes extreme impact. In many ways, social media has captured the agenda-setting power of traditional media.

Today's judgment a step on the road

It is high time that Swedish society starts to develop norms for the social media's big players, who have accounts that can well compare with traditional media. Today's verdict against Cissi Wallin is a step on the road.

In his defense, Wallin and lawyer Percy Bratt have argued that the publications should be seen as important publicist, not some petty private matter. But logic has been difficult because what they defend is a publication that could never be done within the context of the media ethical system.

There is no special principle of mine truth

Clarified 1: If you accuse a named person of a serious crime, you run the risk of being convicted, which applies to anyone who writes on Instagram just as to anyone who calls it out on the square.

Clarified 2: There is no special min-truth principle that applies in social media and that can be used to justify publishing. The battle cry "I stand for truth" is not an argument that carries.

And when Fredrik Virtanen goes ahead with lawsuits against Instagram personalities who shared the accusations in their even larger accounts, we can note one more clarification: the one who, for one another, claims someone else's responsibility for them as their own.