Spasova K. Compensation for non-pecuniary damage in case of violation of non-property rights on social media.

The dissertation is the first in the national science of civil law special comprehensive study of compensation for non-pecuniary damage in case of violation of non-property rights on social media. A comprehensive analysis of legislation and law enforcement practices on compensation for non-pecuniary damage caused in social media was conducted in this research. It is determined that the legal nature of social media is a new and very dynamic phenomenon of modern society. The dissertation highlighted the main legal problems regarding the use of social media, related to their rapid development, namely: the lack of legal framework for regulating relations in this area, provisions for personal data protection, protection of honor, dignity and business reputation of individuals and legal entities, refutation of inaccurate information, etc. violated on social media. Existing Ukrainian and international regulations contain only certain provisions for the settlement of these relations and do not address all of the above issues, and therefore require significant additions. It was emphasized that the future legal regulation should primarily address private law issues of social media, rather than the task of patriotic education and national policy. It is noted that currently the main trends in the development of the institution of compensation for non-pecuniary damage are the movement towards overcoming conceptual contradictions regarding the principles of such an institution and gaps in its regulation. Such problems include, in particular, determining the amount of compensation, the subject composition, the grounds for the emergence of tort relations that arise in violation of non-property rights in social networks, etc. There is a need to introduce in the practice of courts the adoption as evidence of other means of proof (screenshots, audio and video recordings, review of controversial information on the social network page) as an appropriate way to collect and record evidence of violations in social networks. It was found that in order to correctly determine the amount of compensation for non-pecuniary damage, there is a need to enshrine in law the mandatory nature of the plaintiff’s application for compensation for non-pecuniary damage after obtaining a forensic psychological examination.