Facebook Appeal Court Rule Imposing Austrias Hate Speech Ban Globally

[tangor]

Facebook is appealing an order to impose Austria’s social media laws against hate speech on the platform worldwide.

“The court case involves comments posted to Facebook about the leader of Austria’s Green Party, which the party claims are illegal under the country’s hate speech laws,” reported Fortune. “An appeals court in Vienna agreed and ordered Facebook to take them down not just in Austria but everywhere else as well.”

According to Reuters, the court also said that “merely blocking them in Austria without deleting them for users abroad was not sufficient.”

[breitbart.com...]

Depending on how this turns out, the possibility of courts world wide defining "hate speech" could have serious implications for freedom of speech.

[keyplyr]

Facebook doesn't like to be told what to do by anyone and are very reluctant to abide by rules in various countries.

A couple years ago, a FB page was using one of my registered trademarks. I used the proper form and submitted my request to have it removed.

FB basically said they were in Ireland and my USPTO registration wasn't honored there. I complained again showing I also had International use. They ignored me.

I was finally sucessful getting the page owner to voluntarily (via C&D) remove my mark from their page.

As far as hate speech, isn't one person's hate speech just another person's freedom of speech. That's always going to be the comparison... unless it is a call to do harm. However, I can see both sides of the argument.

[tangor]

Facebook doesn't like to be told what to do by anyone and are very reluctant to abide by rules in various countries.

China? India? Russia? Germany? Heck, they might not like it, but they kowtow when pushed. FB, on the other hand, is not an ardent advocate of Free Speech, but that's a different thread and one likely to be canned by mods for Charter abuse. :)