# Spain defamation law online: three routes How Spain defamation law online works: the civil honour action, the criminal offences, time limits, platform notices and search engine delisting. --- Spain defamation law online is not one rule but three doors. A civil action for an illegitimate intrusion on the right to honour, under Organic Law 1/1982, lets a court declare the intrusion, order it to stop and award damages. A criminal complaint for calumnia (accusing someone of a crime you know is false) or injuria (an expression that harms someone's dignity) is the second door, and a data protection request to a search engine is the third. The word "defamation" does not name an offence in the Spanish texts. The Penal Code speaks of crimes against honour, and the civil statute speaks of the rights to honour, privacy and one's own image. What decides the outcome is the same in every route: a court or regulator weighs the harm to the person against freedom of expression and the right to receive truthful information, both protected by the Constitution. This guide is information, not legal advice. A Spanish lawyer (abogado) decides which route fits a real file. Most readers arrive with a specific post, a review, a forum thread or a news item. The practical question is not "is this defamation" but "which door gets the content removed, de-listed or answered, at what cost and risk". The sections below follow that order.
The short version
## Spain gives you three routes, and the first decision is which one The three routes answer different questions. The civil route asks whether a statement or image was an illegitimate intrusion on honour, privacy or image, and what the court should order. The criminal route asks whether a specific person committed a specific offence. The data protection route asks whether a link should keep appearing when someone searches your name. They are not exclusive. The civil statute itself says that the criminal nature of an intrusion does not prevent a person from using its procedure. A de-listing request can run in parallel with either, because it targets the search engine and not the author. What you cannot do is treat them as interchangeable: a criminal complaint against an anonymous poster does nothing about a link that stays in search results, and a de-listing does not compensate the harm or remove the post itself.
RouteAgainst whomWhat it can deliverMain limit
Civil honour actionAuthor, publisher, sometimes the platformDeclaration, cessation, damages, publication of the judgmentFour-year lapse period; court weighing
Criminal complaintAn identifiable individualConviction and a penalty of prison or a fineShort clock; needs a complaint by the offended person
Search engine de-listingThe search engine operatorLinks removed from name searchesContent stays online; public interest can defeat it
Host or platform noticeThe service storing the contentRemoval under its own rules or after an orderLiability turns on effective knowledge
## The civil route: what Organic Law 1/1982 protects and orders The civil route rests on [Organic Law 1/1982](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1982-11196), which protects honour, personal and family privacy and one's own image against illegitimate intrusions. Article 1 describes these rights as non-waivable, inalienable and not subject to prescription as rights, while article 9 sets a separate lapse period for the actions that protect them. Two of the intrusions listed in article 7 matter most online. Article 7(3) covers the disclosure of facts about a person's or family's private life that affect their reputation and good name. Article 7(7) covers imputing facts or expressing value judgments through actions or expressions that in any way harm another person's dignity, undermining their fame or self-esteem. The second is the one that reaches an insulting or false post. Note the breadth of the wording: it covers both factual claims and opinions, which is why the balancing exercise in the next sections does the real work. Article 8 carves out exceptions. Among them, the capture and publication of images of people holding public office or a profession of public notoriety, during public acts or in places open to the public, is not an illegitimate intrusion, and neither is a caricature that follows social custom. The exceptions do not apply to people whose function requires anonymity. ### What a court can order Article 9 lists the protective measures. They can include declaring the intrusion, making it stop, restoring the previous state, preventing future intrusions, awarding damages and taking the profit unlawfully obtained. For an attack on honour, the court can also order publication of the judgment. Under article 9(3), harm is presumed once the illegitimate intrusion is proved, and damages include moral harm. That presumption matters in practice. You do not have to put a number on lost business to bring the claim, but you do have to prove the intrusion, which means preserving the post, its date, its reach and who wrote it. We come back to evidence below. ## The criminal route: calumnia, injuria and the publicity aggravation The criminal offences against honour sit in Title XI of the [Penal Code](https://www.boe.es/eli/es/lo/1995/11/23/10/con), articles 205 to 216 in the BOE index: calumnia in articles 205 to 207, injuria in articles 208 to 210, and common provisions in articles 211 to 216. Offence wording changes through reforms, so your lawyer reads the current text of each article before relying on it. In outline, calumnia is accusing someone of a crime knowing it is false or with reckless disregard for the truth. Injuria is an act or expression that harms another person's dignity. Not every offensive expression is criminal, and whether one crosses the threshold is a judgment for counsel and the court. The distinction is the target: calumnia accuses someone of a crime, injuria attacks dignity or reputation without that element. A post saying a named person "defrauded customers" can be read as an accusation of a crime. A post saying the same person is "incompetent" is an opinion about quality, which is a different and much weaker case. The wording and the evidence of falsity or recklessness decide which side of the line a statement falls on. ### Publicity and online posts Article 206 of the Code, in the wording introduced by Organic Law 15/2003, punishes calumnia spread with publicity with prison or a fine, and calumnia without publicity with a fine only. The Code's chapter on common provisions (articles 211 to 216) deals with how publicity is defined, so a public social media post, a review or a web page is a question of how a court reads that chapter, and the exact penalty ranges are for your lawyer to read in the current BOE text. ### How a criminal case starts Article 215 of the Code, in the wording introduced by the same 2003 reform, says nobody is punished for calumnia or injuria except on a querella: a formal complaint by the offended person or a legal representative. The same paragraph says the case proceeds without a complaint when the offence is aimed at a public official, authority or agent about facts concerning their office. The paragraph has been amended since, so the current wording is for counsel to confirm. A querella is filed through a lawyer and a court procurador, which is why the criminal route has a cost in time and fees even when the penalty at the end is modest. Two features change strategy. First, the offended person starts the case and carries the burden of the complaint, so the decision is theirs and the clock is theirs. Second, an anonymous author has to be identified before a querella can name anyone, which is why evidence preservation comes first. ## Where freedom of expression and information stop the claim The balance is constitutional. Article 18.1 of the Constitution protects honour, privacy and one's own image. Article 20.1 protects the right to express and disseminate thoughts, ideas and opinions freely, and the right to receive truthful information. Article 20.4 says these freedoms are limited by respect for the other rights in the same title, in particular honour, privacy and image. Article 20.2 bars prior censorship, and article 20.5 allows the seizure of publications and recordings only by a court decision. Three working rules come out of that framework, stated here as practitioner shorthand and not as quotations of case law. - **Facts must be truthful, not perfect.** The Constitution speaks of truthful information. In an opinion of its legal office on search engine delisting, the Spanish data protection agency (AEPD) summarizes the Constitutional Court's judgment 58/2018 as requiring diligent verification, not strict factual accuracy. - **Public relevance weighs heavily.** Information about a public matter or a public figure's role is protected more strongly. The same AEPD opinion adds that older material can lose its public interest. - **Opinion is protected until it becomes a gratuitous attack.** A harsh review of a service is expression. A string of insults with no link to any fact is closer to the intrusion described in article 7(7). For a reader judging their own case, the useful test is simple. Strip the post to its factual claims, then ask for each one whether it is true, whether it can be proved, whether it concerns a matter people have a legitimate interest in, and whether the language goes beyond what the point needed. ## Time limits: the civil clock and the criminal clock The civil action lapses four years after the holder could first bring it. Article 9(5) of Organic Law 1/1982 says the protection actions "caducarán" four years from when the holder was able to exercise them. A caducidad period is a different mechanism from a prescription period, so a plan that relies on pausing or restarting the clock should be checked with counsel. The start date is the contested part online. A post published years ago and still live raises the question of whether the holder "could" have acted from the first day. That is a point for the court and not something a guide should settle. The criminal clock is shorter. Article 131 of the Penal Code sets the limitation periods for crimes. Its consolidated text could not be read in full for this guide, but the official preamble of Organic Law 1/2015 describes a one-year period for minor offences as putting them on the same footing as injurias and calumnias, which points to one year for these two offences. Your lawyer confirms the current period and its start date in article 131 before you rely on it. In practice a criminal path usually has to be decided in weeks and months, not years.
4 yearscivil lapse period under article 9(5) of Organic Law 1/1982
Name-basedsearch results are what a de-listing request targets
Court decisionneeded for the seizure of publications under the Constitution

Sources: BOE text of Organic Law 1/1982 and of the Constitution, and the AEPD legal office opinion on name-based searches.

## How a claim against an online post is brought A claim against an online post is brought in the civil courts through a lawyer, with evidence of the content, its author and its harm. The preamble of the Civil Procedure Law (Law 1/2000) says fundamental-rights claims of this kind follow the ordinary trial with preferential handling, and article 9(1) of the 1982 law also allows the special fundamental-rights procedure and, where it applies, an amparo appeal to the Constitutional Court. Which procedure fits a file is for counsel. The steps below are the order a practitioner would follow. They describe a generic civil file and are not a statement of mandatory procedure.
Preparing an honour claim against an online post
  1. Capture the contentRecord the full page, the address, the date and time, the author name or account, and the reach (views, shares, comments). Keep the original files and a hash or a notarial record where the stakes justify it.
  2. Separate facts from opinionList each factual claim and mark whether it is true, false or unverifiable. This list decides whether the case is calumnia, injuria, a civil intrusion or no case at all.
  3. Identify the targetDecide whether the author, the site owner, the platform or the search engine is the right defendant or recipient. An anonymous author may need a court order to be identified.
  4. Try a notice first where it helpsA platform report or a letter to the site owner can be faster than a court, but it creates a record and may alert the author.
  5. Choose the court routeCivil claim, criminal complaint or both, based on the goal: removal, damages, public finding or punishment.
  6. Serve the data protection request in parallelIf the content is also appearing in name searches, send the de-listing request while the main route runs.
## Hosts and platforms: when a notice is enough and when a court order is needed A platform is not automatically liable for what users post. Article 16 of [Law 34/2002 on information society services](https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2002-13758) says a hosting provider is not liable for information stored at a user's request if it has no effective knowledge that the information is unlawful or harms a third party's goods or rights, or if it acts diligently to remove or block it once it has that knowledge. The exemption does not apply where the user acts under the provider's direction or control. The law then says when knowledge is effective: when a competent body has declared the data unlawful or ordered its removal or blocking, or has declared that the harm exists, and the provider knows of that decision. The article also leaves room for voluntary notice and removal procedures and for other means of obtaining effective knowledge. The BOE page notes that the consolidated text is informational and not an official version. The practical reading is this. A platform may remove content on a user report under its own rules, and that is often the fastest route. But if it declines, the statute does not make the refusal unlawful on its own: a court or competent body decision is the surest way to create the knowledge that the law ties to liability. ## De-listing from search engines: the data protection door De-listing is a separate remedy from defamation law, and it works even when the source page is lawful. In [Case C-131/12](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0131), decided on 13 May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that a search engine operator is a controller of personal data, and must in suitable cases remove from the results of a name search links to third-party pages, even if the information is not removed from those pages and even if its publication there is lawful. Spanish law implements this in article 93 of Organic Law 3/2018 on data protection. According to an [AEPD legal office opinion](https://www.aepd.es/documento/2020-0057.pdf), the article covers results of a search made from a person's name, and information can become outdated or inadequate with the passage of time. Article 93(2) provides that exercising the right does not block access to the information on the source site through other search criteria. ### What de-listing does not do It does not delete the page. It does not apply to searches by other terms in the general case: the AEPD opinion says the rule is for searches by name, and that a pseudonym, nickname or stage name may qualify only as an exception where it identifies the person as uniquely as the name does. And it is balanced against freedom of expression and information. The AEPD page on erasure lists freedom of expression and information, a legal obligation, public interest and legal claims among the grounds on which a controller may refuse. The Court of Justice said the person's rights generally override the operator's economic interest and the public's interest in finding the information, except where particular reasons, such as the person's role in public life, show a preponderant public interest in access. For a person with a public role, that exception is the usual obstacle. ## Choosing a route: a decision table and three scenarios The right route depends on the type of content, the goal and the clock. The table matches common situations to the routes above. The scenarios that follow are invented and generic.
SituationFirst moveAdd if neededWatch for
False accusation of a crime by a named personEvidence capture, then lawyer reviewCriminal complaint or civil claimThe short criminal clock
Insulting post, no factsPlatform reportCivil claim under article 7(7)Opinion protection
True but old news about youDe-listing requestPublisher requestPublic interest and your role
Anonymous account, ongoing postsPlatform report and preservationCourt order to identifyEffective knowledge rules
Private facts or images sharedPlatform reportCivil claim under article 7(3)Article 8 public-role exceptions
Scenario one: an independent consultant finds a forum thread, three weeks old, stating she took client money and disappeared. The statement is a factual claim of a crime, and she can show it is false. Her counsel would look at calumnia and at a civil claim, and because the criminal clock is short, the decision on the criminal route comes first. A platform report runs in parallel. Scenario two: a shop owner reads a review calling his product "garbage" and his staff "idiots". The first phrase is an opinion about a product. The second is an insult with no factual content. A report to the platform under its rules is the realistic move, and a court case would face the opinion protection. Scenario three: a founder was named in a regional news story about a dispute that ended without any finding against him. The story is accurate and was lawful. A defamation claim has no footing, but a de-listing request on the name search is a real option, weighed against whether his role gives the public a continuing interest. ## A realistic sequence for the first weeks The times below are what we usually see in files of this kind, not promises or statistics, and courts vary.
StageWhat happensUsually
Evidence and reviewCapture, fact check, route choiceDays
Platform or publisher noticeReport or letter, response awaitedDays to a few weeks
De-listing requestSubmitted to the search engine, then any further step your counsel advisesWeeks to a few months
Civil or criminal filingLawyer drafts and filesWeeks to prepare
Court decisionFirst instance outcomeMany months
## The next step when it is happening now Start with the evidence and the clock, not with a public reply. Reacting in public can create a second page about the dispute and may weaken a later claim. Preserve the content, list its factual claims, and put the dates on a calendar: the criminal period is the shortest one and the civil one is four years from when the holder could act.
If this is happening to you now

Do not reply in public and do not delete your own messages. Capture the content, write down the dates, and speak to a Spanish lawyer about the clock. If you want the content assessed for removal, de-listing and search impact before you decide, our private audit maps what is out there and which route fits.

Reputation Partners works on the search and reputation side of these files: what appears under your name, what can lawfully come down, and what can be corrected. The legal route and the filings belong to your counsel. Where a post is lawful and accurate, we do not promise removal, and where it is unlawful, the sequence is evidence, the right legal instrument and a documented paper trail. For the broader picture of takedown options, see our removal service. ## Questions people ask ### Is there a Spanish word for defamation? People say difamacion in everyday speech, but the Penal Code uses calumnia and injuria, and the civil statute speaks of honour, privacy and image. A lawyer will frame the file in those terms. Searching in Spanish for those words, not for difamacion, usually surfaces the relevant legal materials and court language. ### Can I sue and file a criminal complaint over the same post? Organic Law 1/1982 says the criminal nature of an intrusion does not prevent use of its civil procedure, so both can exist. How the two cases interact, and in which order, is a tactical point for counsel, because the findings of one can matter to the other and the criminal clock is much shorter. ### Does a person with a public role have less protection? Yes in practice. Article 8 of the 1982 law excludes certain image uses for public office holders and notable professions in public settings, and the weighing of information in the public interest favours disclosure. The protection is reduced for matters tied to the role, but not removed for gratuitous insults or false facts. ### Can a search engine refuse even if the article is false? Inaccuracy helps, because the AEPD legal office opinion treats information that is inadequate or outdated as a ground. But a request is still weighed against freedom of expression and information, and a refusal is not the end of the matter: counsel can advise on the next step. A court decision declaring the content unlawful can strengthen the request, because it answers the accuracy question. ### Does searching by a nickname count for de-listing? The general rule is a search by name. The AEPD legal office opinion says a pseudonym, nickname or stage name can qualify only exceptionally, where the person shows it identifies them as uniquely as their name does, and each case needs a prior weighing of interests. ### Can a court take a post down before the trial ends? The 1982 law lists making the intrusion cease among the protective measures, and the Constitution requires a court decision for seizing publications. Whether early relief is available in a given file is for the court and your counsel, and the speed varies. Do not count on it as a default.