The Austrian Supreme Court has rejected Facebook’s challenge regarding a protracted case concerning the removal of objectionable content, determining that the company is obligated to eliminate references to disparaging remarks directed at a local politician globally, for the duration of the injunction.

We have contacted Facebook for a statement regarding this decision.

Eva Glawischnig, a politician from the Green Party, successfully filed a lawsuit against the social media company to compel the removal of defamatory statements made about her by a platform user, following Facebook’s initial refusal to remove the abusive posts—which characterized her as a “worthless betrayer”, a “dishonest person”, and a member of a “fascist organization”. 

Following a preliminary injunction issued in 2016, Glawischnig secured the removal of the defamatory posts locally the subsequent year, but she continued her legal efforts—advocating for the removal of comparable posts and the extension of takedowns to a worldwide scope.

Questions regarding the case were escalated to the EU’s Court of Justice. In a significant ruling last year, the CJEU determined that platforms can be directed to actively search for and remove unlawful content on a global scale without contravening European regulations that prevent platforms from being burdened with a “general content monitoring requirement”. Today’s decision by the Austrian Supreme Court is a direct consequence of that ruling.

According to Austrian newspaper Der Standard, the court affirmed that the injunction applies universally, encompassing both identical posts and those conveying the same fundamental meaning as the original defamatory content.

The court reasoned that EU Member States and civil courts are permitted to require platforms such as Facebook to oversee content in “specific instances”—specifically when a court has identified user-generated content as illegal and “precise details” about it are available—in order to prevent the re-publication and sharing of content deemed unlawful by another platform user at a later time, with the ultimate goal of preventing future infringements.

This case carries substantial implications for the boundaries of online expression.

Legislators at the regional level are also engaged in revising digital liability regulations. Lawmakers within the Commission have expressed their intention to hold platforms more accountable for the content they host and profit from—driven by concerns surrounding the impact of online hate speech, terrorist material, and divisive misinformation.

A long-standing EU regulation, which prohibits Member States from imposing a general content monitoring obligation on platforms, restricts the extent to which they can be compelled to censor speech. However, the CJEU ruling has created an opening for limited monitoring of speech—in cases where it has been legally determined to be unlawful—and this development may influence the policy framework of the Digital Services Act, which the Commission is scheduled to release in draft form early next month.

In response to last year’s CJEU ruling, Facebook contended that it “creates the possibility of imposing obligations on internet companies to proactively monitor content and then assess whether it is ‘equivalent’ to content that has been found to be illegal”.

“To ensure clarity, national courts will need to establish very precise definitions of what ‘identical’ and ‘equivalent’ signify in practice. We trust that the courts will adopt a balanced and measured approach, to safeguard against a detrimental impact on freedom of expression,” the company added.