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More bad news for Facebook on the content front: An\u00a0Austrian court has ruled the company must remove posts deemed to be hate speech,\u00a0Reuters<\/a>\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n The case was brought last year by Austria\u2019s Green party over what it argued were defamatory insults to its leader, Eva Glawischnig, posted to Facebook by a fake account.<\/p>\n The party\u00a0said the posts were not taken down \u2014 despite repeated complaints. And the Commercial Court of Vienna granted a preliminary injunction\u00a0in December<\/a>, ruling\u00a0that Facebook must take down posts deemed to be hateful under Austrian law.<\/p>\n Facebook\u2019s appeal against that ruling now looks to have\u00a0failed \u2014 with the appeals court strengthening the original ruling by saying it must removal both the\u00a0original post and any verbatim repostings.<\/p>\n The court has also ruled\u00a0that Facebook\u00a0must remove content globally rather than just blocking posts locally \u2014 expanding the significance of the ruling beyond Austria\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n The Austrian court did not go so far as to suggest Facebook is responsible for weeding out similar hate speech postings. But\u00a0Reuters reports that the Green party intends to push for that by taking\u00a0the case to the country\u2019s\u00a0highest court.<\/p>\n The party is also hoping to force Facebook to\u00a0identify the holders of fake accounts, and to pay damages for hate speech being spread on its platform, arguing that the ability to win damages would make it easier\u00a0for individuals to pursue legal action against the company, given the costs involved.<\/p>\n At the time of writing Facebook had not responded to a request for comment. We\u2019ll update this post with any statement.<\/p>\n Facebook\u00a0has been facing increasing pressure about its response to hate speech complaints in Europe. Last month<\/a> politicians in\u00a0Germany voted to back proposals for a law to hit social media firms\u00a0with fines of up to\u00a0\u20ac50 million if they fail to promptly remove illegal hate speech from their platforms \u2014 within 24 hours after a complaint\u00a0has been made for \u201cobviously criminal content\u201d, and within seven days for other illegal content.<\/p>\n This month UK MPs also\u00a0called for the government to consider a similar approach<\/a>\u00a0there,\u00a0to try to\u00a0enforce better standards of content moderation on social platform giants \u2014 with signs some US lawmakers might be thinking along similar lines too<\/a>, vis-a-vis terrorism content.<\/p>\n In the UK in recent times Facebook has\u00a0faced accusations it\u00a0has ignored complaints about\u00a0extremist content<\/a> and child abuse imagery being shared on its platform<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and that it only removed the\u00a0content when contacted by the media outlets reporting on\u00a0the problem, suggesting its content moderation systems are struggling to handle the volume of complaints.<\/p>\n Last week Facebook itself\u00a0announced<\/a> it would be increasing the headcount of the team it employs to review flagged content \u2014 saying 3,000 more staff would be added to the existing 4,500 people it already has working on this. Although for a platform that has\u00a0close to two billion users a\u00a0few thousand extra moderators really are a drop in the ocean of content it is generating.<\/p>\n Differences in local laws around hate speech also obviously complicate this process for a US company operating a\u00a0global platform. And it\u2019s not clear where exactly its\u00a0new moderators will be based \u2014 although Facebook has previously said it employs moderators in Germany and Dublin to review European content.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, some extremely disturbing\u00a0incidents being broadcast on\u00a0Facebook Live<\/a>, its\u00a0live video streaming platform, have also\u00a0served to raise the profile and awareness of\u00a0the risks of moderation failures.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the perception that\u00a0fake\u00a0news is being liberally spread via Facebook\u00a0continues to pile\u00a0political pressure\u00a0on the company.<\/p>\n On this front it emerged today that Facebook has taken some pre-emptive steps to try to defang criticism of misinformation being spread via its platform ahead of the UK General Election next month \u2014 announcing it\u2019s purged \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of fake accounts<\/a>. It has also taken\u00a0out adverts in British newspapers to warn people to be more skeptical of things they read, as it did in France ahead of presidential elections there.<\/p>\n But despite taking some steps to tweak its News Feed to combat deliberate attempts to game the algorithm, the company\u00a0has\u00a0faced\u00a0criticism\u00a0that its response has been\u00a0inadequate <\/a>\u2014 and that it continues to profit from fake news \u2014 even as concerns\u00a0that the power of its platform has\u00a0been misappropriated by malicious actors<\/a> intent on trying to subvert the democratic process persist.<\/p>\n And with lawmakers in various countries taking increasing\u00a0notice\u00a0of how various types of socially divisive\u00a0content can be seen\u00a0being amplified on\u00a0Facebook\u2019s\u00a0platform it looks unlikely there will\u00a0be any near term let up in pressure on the company.<\/p>\n