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Germany’s Federal Court ruled Thursday that Facebook will have to reinstate posts that it had removed for violating its hate speech rules.
In its ruling, the Karlsruhe-based court said that Facebook did not inform two users that it had removed their posts. It added that the company should have also informed and given users an opportunity to respond before suspending them from its platform.
The case concerns posts in which two German users were complaining about migrants, which Facebook removed in 2018 because it said the posts violated its policy on hate speech, and suspended the users’ accounts for several days. The users complained that Facebook limited their freedom of speech.
The court said while Facebook was entitled to set strict content rules banning hateful speech and to block users, the way it implemented its content moderation policy was “ineffective.”
Facebook will not be allowed to delete the posts again after they are reinstated.
Facebook did not immediately comment on the case.
