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The European Court of Justice ruled last week in Austria, October 3, that Facebook could be forced to suppress comments worldwide deemed offensive by the jurisdiction of a European country. It all started with the complaint of an Austrian politician.
From our correspondent in Vienna,
Eva Glawischnig is the former head of the Austrian Greens, now removed from politics. In 2016, a user post a news article with a photo of her, accompanied by insults. She is described as a " traitor " and accused of being " corrupt ". The elected then asks Facebook to delete the publication, to no avail.
She decides to file a complaint against the company, asking him to delete the publication of this user but also all the similar insults on the social network. An Austrian court finally orders Facebook to delete the publication, which the company does, but only in Austria. This is not enough in the eyes of Eva Glawischnig, who wants Facebook to remove this message and similar insults around the world. The case goes back to the Austrian Supreme Court, which then turns to the Court of Justice of the European Union. This one finally gives reason to the elected Austrian.
" The fight against hate online ... "
The Court considered that a host of content such as Facebook could be forced to remove worldwide comments deemed defamatory or offensive by the jurisdiction of a European country. In short, content that is recognized as illegal in a country of the European Union can be suppressed not only in this country but also in the rest of the world. The Court goes even further in considering that it is possible to automatically eliminate " identical or equivalent content " from that which was initially prohibited by the courts. Eva Glawischnig hailed " a historic success for human rights against the giants of the web ". According to his lawyer, the Court's ruling is " a key step in the fight against online hate ".
The concern of NGOs
But this judgment is far from unanimous. It is criticized on the one hand by Facebook, which invokes freedom of expression. According to the company, this decision " undermines the longstanding principle that one country does not have the right to impose its own legislation on freedom of expression on another ".
Facebook believes that such a decision can only be applied if the national courts establish clear definitions of what can be considered as " equivalent " content to that initially prohibited by the courts. But some NGOs, too, are worried. This is particularly the case for the epicenter.works data protection association. In her opinion, the automatic deletion of equivalent content could lead to the erasure of publications that are not problematic from a legal point of view, as in the case of satire, publications which, according to the NGO, should be protected by freedom. expression.
Full text of the opinion of Advocate General @maciejszpunar on case C-18/18
Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v Facebook Ireland Limited.
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