Social media
Success for Renate Künast in the legal dispute against Facebook
Success for Renate Künast in the trial against the Facebook group Meta. photo
© Soeren Stache/dpa
Green politician Renate Künast defends herself against a meme with a false quote that is circulating on Facebook. Now the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court agreed with her in the appeal process.
In its ruling, the Frankfurt Regional Court found that the plaintiff politician could demand that a certain word-image combination – a so-called meme – with a false quote attributed to her be blocked on the social network. The network also has to delete variants of this meme with the same core content without further reference to the respective Internet address. “This means that those affected by viral defamations will finally receive effective legal protection,” said Künast’s lawyer Matthias Pilz after the verdict was announced. “Social media must comprehensively delete rights violations once they have been notified of them.”
In addition, the Künast regional court had granted monetary compensation of 10,000 euros; The Higher Regional Court rejected this in its decision with reference to the legal question that was still unresolved at the time.
Internet users had published a picture of Künast on Facebook with a false quote about integration attached: “Integration begins with you as a German learning Turkish.” The post was also published in different versions, for example with a different layout and a different web address. The OLG decision is not yet legally binding.