Photos of Green politician Renate Künast and quotes that are wrongly attributed to her are circulating on Facebook. Now a court has ruled that Facebook must delete the Künast memes.
The member of the Bundestag Renate Künast has won a legal victory against the Facebook group Meta in a dispute over defamatory false quotes. The Frankfurt district court ruled on Friday that the Greens politician could demand that a certain word-image combination – a meme – be blocked on the social network with a false quote that was foisted on her. The network must also delete variants of this meme with the same core content without further reference to the respective Internet address. The decision is not yet final. (File number 2-03 O 188/21)
Internet users published a picture of Künast on Facebook with an incorrect quote on the subject of integration: “Integration begins when you, as a German, learn Turkish.” The politician demanded that the Meta group, as the operator of Facebook, delete the entry. The post was also published in different variants, for example with a different layout and a different web address.
Court sees personal rights violated by Künast
The judges in Frankfurt ruled that the false quotation violated Künast’s personal rights. A service provider does not have to check all posts posted online for a violation of the law without notice. “After Renate Künast specifically pointed out that the statement attributed to her is a false quote, she does not have to repeat this notice for each further legal violation, stating the URL.” The company has also not proven that it is technically and economically unreasonable to recognize identical and similar memes.
In its judgment, the Künast court also approved monetary compensation of 10,000 euros. Meta has not fulfilled the obligation to free the platform from further false quotes. The judgment can be challenged by appeal to the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court.
Meta wants to wait for the verdict
“We will now wait for the reasons for the verdict and examine further possible steps,” said a spokeswoman for Meta. They work with independent fact-checkers to identify and flag misinformation. “We have removed the false quote reported by Ms. Künast from the Facebook platform and have taken further measures in this case to also identify and remove identical content,” it said.
Künast was supported in the process by the Hateaid organization, which campaigns against hatred and hate speech online. “The verdict is a sensation. The court has made it clear that social media are responsible for protecting users,” Hateaid said on Friday. Above all, operators can no longer claim that the burden of finding illegal content lies solely with those affected.
In a joint statement with Hateaid, Künast described the verdict as a “milestone for our democracy”: “This fundamental decision with the obligation to delete all existing false quotes finally makes the platforms responsible.”
Source: Stern
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