The EU Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that courts across the bloc had the legal right to order host providers, particularly Facebook, to remove user content that had previously been declared illegal, such as hate speech or defamation
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd October, 2019) The EU Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that courts across the bloc had the legal right to order host providers, particularly Facebook, to remove user content that had previously been declared illegal, such as hate speech or defamation.In June, the court's advocate general, Maciej Szpunar, stated that once an EU court ordered Facebook to remove content, an injunction could potentially be sought to demand the US company remove all identical posts by any user worldwide. Facebook criticized the opinion, saying that such measures could threaten global freedom of expression.
"EU law does not preclude a host provider such as Facebook from being ordered to remove identical and, in certain circumstances, equivalent comments previously declared to be illegal," the court said.
However, host providers would not be held liable for information of which they had no knowledge and not be required to actively seek supposedly illegal content.
The court added that the ruling did not preclude such an injunction from producing worldwide effects within the framework of relevant international law.
The decision comes after an Austrian lawmaker applied for an injunction from a local court to order the social media giant to take down what she claimed was defamatory content related to her. Facebook eventually blocked access to the original comments within Austria.
Facebook has been largely criticized for its role in disseminating hateful content worldwide since a gruesome terror attack took place in New Zealand earlier this year, in which a self-proclaimed white nationalist fatally shot 50 people in two mosques and livestreamed the incident over the platform. Since then, the US company has been tightening its regulation of content deemed hateful.
