Following a landmark ruling released today by the European Union’s top court, judges in the bloc can now order Facebook Inc. to take down content globally if it’s found to violate local defamation laws.

The European Court of Justice issued the judgment in connection with a lawsuit filed by an Austrian politician.

Eva Glawisching-Piesczek, a former chairperson of the Greens party, sent Facebook a letter in 2016 asking it to remove a post that targeted her with disparaging comments. After the company refused, the case went before Austria’s Supreme Court of Justice, which deemed the post inflammatory and forwarded the matter to ECJ.

Today’s judgment could have broad implications for how online platforms moderate content. Essentially, the decision means that a court in an EU member state could make a post deemed illegal under local laws inaccessible in other nations, including countries where the post may not qualify as defamatory. Moreover, the ruling extends beyond Facebook: any company categorized as a “host provider” can be issued an order to globally take down illegal content. 

National courts will have a certain amount of discretion in how much content they ask to delete. Facebook and other online platforms can be ordered to take down posts that are identical or “equivalent” to a piece of content ruled to be defamatory. 

The social network can’t appeal the ruling because the ECJ is the highest judicial authority in the EU. But Facebook pushed back against the judgment in a statement to the press, saying that “it undermines the long-standing principle that one country does not have the right to impose its laws on speech on another country.” 

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a group that counts Facebook among its members, criticized the ruling as a development that will complicate tech companies’ operations. “Few hosting platforms, especially startups, will have the resources to implement elaborate monitoring systems,” the consortium said.

It will also be worth watching what legal implications the decision may have for Google LLC, which recently won a favorable ruling from the ECJ in a similar case. The court decided that the search giant doesn’t have to enforce the EU’s “right to be forgotten” privacy policy in other jurisdictions. 

Image: Pixabay