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.

Comments

Farenheight 451

[goombah99]

ANyone ever read Ray Bradburys forward on why he wrote F451? He wrote it years later and it was included in some editions. He described something akin to creeping political correctness arguments put forth by narrow interest groups were going to strangle all expression because everything offends somebody. The solution the politicians favor is to ban things that offend. So soon books would be not only banned but people would go out of their way to try to make sure nobody could have access to offensive books. It would all be bread and circuses.

At the time I read that, San Francisco was going through a phase where the public libraries were Bolwderizing Mary Poppins so that the slang spoken by the Black maid was converted to a more respectable kings english. Original copies were pulled from the libraries.

I felt he had a point. It doesn't really matter if the book is offensive. Protecting people from offense is worse.

Re:You Cannot Give Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone offends you, you should apologize to them because...

1: You took offense at something not intended to be offensive.
2: You took offense purely to start a fight.
3: You did something in the past to warrant being subject to offensive matter.

If none of the above apply, you should ignore the person and not feed the troll. Otherwise, apologize for your loss of control.

Re:if we learned anything in the past

[nucrash]

I think this would be a demonstration that they are not aware of the limitations of their jurisdiction.

Remember the last time an Austrian tried to dictate policy globally?