EU court's historic hate speech ruling against Facebook

Europe’s top court has ruled that individual countries can force Facebook to take down illegal content, including hate speech, both inside the EU and across the world. A Financial Times report says the European Court of Justice made the decision after a Green Party politician in Austria sued Facebook, demanding that the social network remove a set of defamatory comments about her, and any ‘equivalent’ messages posted by others, globally. The ECJ said there was nothing in EU law to stop national courts from asking Facebook to search and delete duplicate posts of illegal content and that such take-downs should apply worldwide. The judgment upholds a non-binding opinion from an ECJ adviser in June that Facebook fiercely criticised for ‘undermining the longstanding principle that one country should not have the right to limit free expression in other countries’. Eline Chivot, analyst at the Center for Data Innovation, said the ruling risked opening a ‘pandora’s box’ where EU court rulings can apply in countries that do not have similar libel or hate speech laws. ‘What is prohibited in one nation may not be in another, including within the EU and between its member states,’ said Chivot. ‘Expanding content bans worldwide will undermine Internet users’ right to access information and freedom of expression in other countries. This precedent will embolden other countries, including those with little respect for free speech, to make similar demands.’ The ruling will compel Facebook to proactively search for duplicate posts, as long as the material is already subject to a removal order and ‘identical’ or ‘equivalent’ to the original post. The ECJ was asked to provide clarity on the scope of Facebook’s responsibility to remove illegal content after the question was referred by Austria’s High Court.

Facebook slammed the decision, saying ‘it undermines the long-standing principle that one country does not have the right to impose its laws on speech on another country.’ According to a report on the EWN site, it also deplored the obligation to track down ‘equivalent’ content that duplicates offensive or hateful language. ‘In order to get this right, national courts will have to set out very clear definitions on what 'identical' and 'equivalent' means in practice,’ a Facebook statement said. ‘We hope the courts take a proportionate and measured approach, to avoid having a chilling effect on freedom of expression,’ it said. Greens party politician Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, the victim of the hate speech, hailed the decision as ‘a historic success for human rights against web giants’.