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Facebook Must Delete Hate Postings Worldwide, Rules Austrian Court (reuters.com)
An Austrian court has ruled that Facebook must delete hate speech postings worldwide. "The case -- brought by Austria's Green party over insults to its leader -- has international ramifications as the court ruled the postings must be deleted across the platform and not just in Austria, a point that had been left open in an initial ruling," reports Reuters. From the report: The case comes as legislators around Europe are considering ways of forcing Facebook, Google, Twitter and others to rapidly remove hate speech or incitement to violence. Facebook's lawyers in Vienna declined to comment on the ruling, which was distributed by the Greens and confirmed by a court spokesman, and Facebook did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Strengthening the earlier ruling, the Viennese appeals court ruled on Friday that Facebook must remove the postings against Greens leader Eva Glawischnig as well as any verbatim repostings, and said merely blocking them in Austria without deleting them for users abroad was not sufficient. The court added it was easy for Facebook to automate this process. It said, however, that Facebook could not be expected to trawl through content to find posts that are similar, rather than identical, to ones already identified as hate speech. The Greens hope to get the ruling strengthened further at Austria's highest court. They want the court to demand Facebook remove similar - not only identical - postings, and to make it identify holders of fake accounts. The Greens also want Facebook to pay damages, which would make it easier for individuals in similar cases to take the financial risk of taking legal action.
Austrian court can pass any law they want, however how do they expect to enforce this outside of their jurisdiction? Under what legal authority?
You can only take it.
Adding to my own post. I'm all in favor of community standards and even community laws that ban behaviours. Even libertarians should be in favor of not interferring with communities that want to regulate themselves. It's a free country. But banning something in someone elses community because you don't like it is something to fear.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The problem is that "hate speech" is it's defined by idiots. A muslim saying that atheists should be killed is seen as an expression of faith. Someone saying that Islam is backwards and violent for sentencing atheists to death is hate speech
A Saudi court has ordered Facebook to cover up ankles and hair of women, worldwide.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
> Surely one can find exceptions to the rule.
I believe those exceptions are called rights, or human rights. An individual or group may do as they please, but should not infringe on anyone's rights.
If you only have the "right" to say things everyone agrees with, that's no right at all; that's just agreement.
Note that the US Constitution and others modeled on it do not by their terms create rights, they bar the government from *infringing* on the rights. It also says "the right of free speech", not "a right of free speech" - the framers recognized that human rights *already* existed and said shall not infringe rights.
the company is operating in Austria
Time for that to end.
ANyone ever read Ray Bradburys forward on why he wrote F451? .
The thing I remember about the forward was Bradbury's explanation of the book's title - and how he had a dickens of a time finding the temperature at which book paper caught fire. After striking out with reference librarians and researchers, in desperation he called up his local fire station... which provided the answer to him within seconds.
#DeleteChrome
What, or who, defines "hate" speech? I found the above two posts to be funny... but if some hyper-"sensitive" person complained about similar postings (on facebook), would it then be considered hateful? If I posted "Jesus loves you" and 10,000 people reported it as being hateful, would it be removed? Is there an internet vote on each potential post before removal?
the company is operating in Austria and probably has an Austrian-registered company, meaning it is well with in the jurisdiction of austrian courts to make that order
If you have a child move to Austria, does that subject you to Austrian law too?
If it were me... I'd tell Austria that it should shut the fuck up, laugh at their "ruling" and not only NOT delete it everywhere, I'd not even delete it THERE. In response instead, I'd tell the country that gave the world Adolf HITLER, that they're being a little fascist, and even if they're now trying to atone for the murder of millions upon millions of innocent people, and untold human suffering, doing so by MORE fascistic behavior only shows they've learned NOTHING from their own history.
Fascist bullshit isn't fascist because of WHOM it targets, it's fascist because of WHAT IT DOES. For example. So-called, "anti-fascists" or "antifa," seem to employ fascist or even outright terrorist tactics, making their name not only ironic, but a bitter euphemism. Austria's so-called "ruling" is the same way...
So obviously, Austria's laughable attempt at overreach should be laughed out of the room as the garbage it is, and be disregarded, ignored, and not worried in the least about. They're just an also-exists pseudo-country waiting around for Germany to annex them again.
And something about Wiener-schnitzel. That should really piss them off.
You've conflated jurisdiction with authority. They have the jurisdiction. They lack the authority.
While the subsidiary is within the court's jurisdiction, the court's authority does not extend beyond their jurisdiction to cover what the parent organization does outside of Austria's borders. The court can order them to remove the content from servers in Austria, order them to hide it from display to Austrians, and may even be able to do the same across the EU*, but they most certainly do NOT have the authority to enforce those rules against Facebook globally.
Rulings like these effectively trample on the sovereignty of other nations where one country's laws may not be the ones they've chosen to follow. This sort of issue has been a constant struggle in recent years with the US, as it's been attempting to overstep its bounds in similar ways. It's something we need to push back on regardless of where it occurs if we want to have any hope of encouraging the US and others to be good neighbors by confining their rulings to their borders.
* I know there are some country-level courts that can make rulings that are binding across country borders within the EU, but, as an American, I don't really have an awareness of which courts those are or if this is one of them.
...is a political definition, moves with the times. For example, in USA, it doesn't take much for criticism of Israel (the country, as opposed to the religion Judaism) to be painted anti-semitic, yet anti-Islam rhetoric is currently regarded more tolerantly.
In a world where even basic scientific facts like "boys and girls are different" are considered hate speech, everyone should be concerned. And I'm talking about this world. Today. Not something from fiction.
No reason to pull out. Just have to let the Austrian government block facebook. No effort required.
That's exactly what everybody in ROW thinks when a US court decides something must happen outside US borders.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
There's no "seems like"; that is explicitly what the Austrian court ruled. "We don't like this, therefore it is illegal around the world."
Thomas Galvin
The danger isn't Austria per se. The bigger problem is the Greens. They're a global outfit. If they can win there, they can win anywhere. It's important to vote them out of the seats they have until they learn what freedom means. The freedom to 'offend' is essential.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”