Frankfurt Twitter owner Elon Musk describes himself as a “free speech absolutist”. He wants to reduce the moderation of content with insults, defamation and hatred to a minimum, and algorithms should take over most of the control. However, this policy is currently being subjected to a reality check in several places – on Wednesday also before the Frankfurt Regional Court.
There, the Baden-Württemberg anti-Semitism commissioner Michael Blume complained in summary proceedings against Twitter. The scientist asked the online service to delete tweets with defamatory claims, including the relevant content. One user had assumed, among other things, that he was in a relationship with a minor.
The district court agreed with Blume for the most part on Wednesday. The chamber ruled that those affected can request Twitter to delete incorrect or defamatory content. The group must act as soon as it becomes aware of an infringement. This also applies to deviating formulations with an “identical core of the statement” – a novelty in case law.
The decision (file number 2-03O325/22) could have far-reaching consequences for moderation practice – not just for Twitter: the effort is likely to be significantly greater. “Social media companies must check and refrain from reported violations of general personal rights,” said presiding judge Ina Frost. “In this way, those affected can obtain effective legal protection.”
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The judgment is not final, the parties can appeal to the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court. And there is some evidence that this is the case: It is a matter of principle, both for Twitter and for Blume, which is taking action against the tweets with the support of the non-profit organization Hate Aid.
Twitter ignores reports
Hate Aid sees the process as a test case. “We experience again and again that platforms simply let targeted hate campaigns run and ignore reports from those affected,” explained managing director Anna-Lena von Hodenberg before the trial. Twitter plays by its own arbitrary rules.
In the current case, anti-Semitism officer Blume argues that he has been subjected to massive attacks on Twitter. One user accused him of “proximity to pedophilia” in a series of tweets. There was also talk of an affair and anti-Semitic scandals. He complained about a total of 46 tweets via the company’s reporting system, initially alone, then “with legal support”.
Twitter was late in responding. The company only deleted three of the tweets and only completely blocked the user account from which the statements originally came several days later, the district court said. The slanderous allegations are untrue – the company has thus violated its audit obligation.
The consequences that the regional court draws from this are far-reaching. In addition to the tweets in question, the chamber obliged Twitter to also delete statements “which are to be regarded as equivalent and which, despite certain deviations, have an identical core of the statement”. This goes beyond retweets.
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Judgments of the Federal Court of Justice and the Federal Constitutional Court already point in this direction, explained the presiding judge Frost – the chamber has now consistently implemented these guidelines.
Moderators fired, advisory board dissolved
Twitter will probably have to do more to moderate content in the future. In the oral hearing in November, the group had therefore argued that such a decision would lead to an unreasonable obligation to examine. The company “as a platform for real-time communication makes a significant contribution to the exchange of opinions and thus to freedom of expression in virtual space,” as it said in a brief.
How the group assesses the verdict was not known when it was announced: neither a representative nor a lawyer from the law firm White & Case, which represents the social media group, were there. According to a report by the Bloomberg news agency, the German press office has dissolved the company.
The District Court dismissed the lawsuit on only one point. Users are likely to spread that the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles mentioned Blume in its list of the biggest anti-Semites in the world – an accusation that the Central Council of Jews called “absurd” at the time. The anti-Semitism commissioner must “defend himself in the public opinion battle” against this statement.
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The exact consequences are currently not foreseeable, especially since the judgment is not yet final. However, the case shows how the policy of Twitter owner Musk in Germany can conflict with the law. Since the completion of the acquisition, the company has laid off much of the staff, including on the moderation teams. The management is now issuing the motto to identify objectionable content as much as possible with algorithms.
The entrepreneur, who is also the head of Tesla and SpaceX and is considered the second richest person in the world, has also announced a “general amnesty” for most of the previously blocked user accounts. And just recently, the company dissolved the advisory board that is supposed to help deal with hate speech, suicide and other problematic content.
The discussion should continue. For the lawyer Chan-jo Jun, who is representing Blume, the interests of his client are not the only concern in these proceedings. “The overarching goal is to shape how discourse and opinion-forming take place in our democracy,” he told the Handelsblatt before the verdict was announced. With a view to the confrontational, often brutal conflicts in the USA, he wants to prevent “Americanization”.
“We have to work out the exact rules of the game through model processes,” says Jun, who has already represented the Greens politician Renate Künast against Facebook, ultimately successfully – she asked the group to delete an incorrect quote attributed to her. “Our legal system will also be able to discipline Twitter,” the lawyer is convinced. “It’s just going to take a long time.”
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