EU Decision May Force Hosts to Take Down Content Worldwide

(October 4, 2019) The power of EU members to order removal of internet content extends worldwide, the European Court of Justice found.

The ruling came in a case where Facebook was ordered to remove or block content not only from its Ireland-based server, but worldwide. The Facebook page was found by Austrian courts as harmful to the reputation of a member of Austria’s National Council.

An EU directive protects a host provider, such as Facebook, from liability for stored information if the host has no knowledge of its illegal nature or if the host acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to that information as soon as it becomes aware of it. Facebook initially refused to delete the comment but later blocked the post.

The EU court found it had jurisdiction to require a host provider block access not only to the harmful content but also content which is identical to the illegal content or content that is worded slightly differently. The court then said that because of the “global dimension of electronic commerce,” it is reasonable for the EU directive to be applicable at the “international level.” Thus, the court concluded the EU directive does not preclude a court of a “member state” from ordering a host provider:

• to remove information which it stores, the content of which is identical to the content of information that was previously declared to be unlawful, or to block access to that information, irrespective of who requested the storage of that information;
• to remove information which it stores, the content of which is equivalent to the content of the information that was previously declared to be unlawful, or to block access to that information, provided that the monitoring of and search for the information concerned by such an injunction are limited to information conveying a message the content of which remains essentially unchanged compared with the content found illegal and contain the elements specified in the injunction.
• to remove information covered by the injunction or to block access to that information worldwide within the framework of the relevant international law.

For entities such as Facebook, the ruling means that it must remove or block the content not only on servers located in the EU, but on all of its servers worldwide.

Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v Facebook Ireland Limited, EU Case C-18/18, issued October 3, 2019.