Facebook is being put under even more pressure to keep an eye on the content of its users. A court has now ruled that the social network must fight posts with false quotes with all its might and delete copies on its own without a new deletion notice. On the plaintiff’s side sat a prominent politician, who herself probably knows best how it feels to be insulted and threatened on the net.
Court ruling sees Facebook under obligation
Behind the anonymity of the Internet, many people have been hiding for some time to express their hatred quite openly and supposedly also protected. With the corona pandemic, this has become even more pronounced. Some social network users openly and blatantly attacked journalists, politicians and scientists. Insults were the least of it. Many were also threatened with violence or even death. The corresponding contributions are quite multifaceted. In addition to mere text posts, memes are also being used more and more frequently, often with misquotes. While Facebook has been openly combating mere “hate speech” in text form for some time now, the memes in question have so far tended to be disregarded. Now a court ruling could ensure that Facebook itself has to remove copies of these from its platforms.
The lawsuit was filed by Renate Künast, a well-known Green politician and lawyer. She herself has been the victim of various slurs, insults and threats of violence online. In addition, the former federal minister was charged with false quotes in a meme. After she asked Facebook to delete it, copies with the same content quickly appeared. To ensure that she and others would not be threatened with this from now on, she filed an action for an injunction at the Frankfurt Regional Court – with success. According to the court, the social network is not only obligated to remove corresponding posts from the page after being notified when they first appear. If the meme is uploaded again, Facebook must also take action without notification. If this ruling now becomes legally binding, it will put social networks under even greater obligation.
New success for Renate Künast
The subject of the lawsuit was a picture of Künast, on which she herself was to be seen with a false quote. Thus the editor provided the picture of the politician with the words:
“Integration starts with you learning Turkish as a German once!”
In the process, the Green politician was again able to prevail in court against hate on the net. In previous court rulings, Künast already ensured that content in particular that finds its way onto Facebook again after deletion must be deleted by the social network. In doing so, she also received support from associations that campaign against hate speech.
General effect of the ruling is a novelty
Of course, the injunction ruling is not the first to be handed down by a German court against the social network. However, the ruling has a huge impact that one might not comprehend at first glance. After all, it doesn’t just refer to the one meme disparaging Künast. Rather, the court takes Facebook to task for all upcoming images with false quotes that once again find their way onto the platform. This ensures that victims of such an attack can be sure in the future that no further postings of this kind will circulate on the social network. Until now, victims had to search for copies of posts that had already been deleted. This task is now most likely Facebook’s duty.
Notices to repeat posts no longer necessary
While every user of Facebook benefits from the generally applicable injunction ruling, Künast herself has also been able to draw monetary compensation from the trial. Thus, the court awarded her compensation for pain and suffering in the amount of 10,000 euros. But what exactly is Facebook’s obligation? In order to understand this, it is worth taking a look at the judgment of the Frankfurt Regional Court. The court let the following be known through its press department:
“Also variants of this meme with core-similar content must delete the social network without renewed reference to the respective URL”
In doing so, the court made it clear that Facebook does not now have to check all memes for correct citations. However, should a reference about a misquote have been received once, this would not have to be done for each further copy of the post. On this, the presiding judge stated:
“After Renate Künast but specifically pointed out that the statement attributed to her is a false quote, it does not have to repeat this reference for each further violation of the law, indicating the URL”
Duty to delete is broadly defined
If the ruling proves to be legally binding, it could play a groundbreaking role. After all, Facebook has rarely been held to such a strong obligation. The court sees the social network namely not only obliged to delete exact copies. It must also delete modifications that still contain the core content. The court speaks here, for example, of versions
“with a changed layout or by expanding or omitting text content, by typing errors or by changing pixels that are not perceptible to the eye”
Meta itself sees the obligation to delete as a too far-reaching judgment. After all, the effort for this is extremely high. But the court was apparently not convinced by this argument. After all, Meta as the parent company of Facebook could not prove that such a thing would overburden them. In this regard, it can be read in the judgment:
“The defendant has not shown that it is technically and economically unreasonable for it to recognize identical and similar memes without a concrete designation of the URL, even if a human moderation decision becomes necessary for the assessment of a modified text in an entry”,
Künast rejected out-of-court solution
That Renate Künast was by no means concerned with the compensation for pain and suffering is clear from the mere fact that Facebook, according to its own statements, approached her in advance. One can certainly assume that the politician was offered a much higher compensation by the gigantic tech company. But as a lawyer, Künast was aware that her lawsuit also offered the chance of a verdict from which all Facebook users could benefit. Accordingly, she did not refrain from filing her lawsuit. She left the courtroom accordingly happy after the judges read out the verdict. She herself sees it as a
“Milestone for our democracy”
Meta, meanwhile, appeared lamblike following the verdict. A spokeswoman for the group said:
“We have removed the misquote reported by Ms. Künast from the Facebook platform and have taken further action in this case to also identify and remove identical content.”
Appellate proceedings seem certain
Even if the ruling should particularly please fighters against the ever-growing problem of hate on the net, the cries of jubilation should not yet be too loud. After all, in view of the great radiance, it seems almost certain that Meta will not accept the verdict without further ado. The company itself says that for the time being it would like to
“examine further possible steps”
Theoretically, the company has the right to appeal to a court of appeal to have the verdict reviewed once again for its correctness. If the obligation to check proves to be legal, this would be a real gamechanger for all social networks and a real gain in the fight against more and more hate on the Internet.
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