A Syrian refugee famous for taking a selfie with Angela Merkel in autumn 2015 is taking Facebook to court for allegedly taking insufficient action against what the man says are defamatory “fake news” posts using his picture.
Facebook has been summoned to a district court in the southern German city of Wurzburg in what could prove to be a landmark case as the government looks for ways to make internet companies more accountable for the content published on their platforms.
Anas Modamani, 19, from Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, took a photograph of himself with Merkel during the chancellor’s visit to a refugee shelter in Berlin’s Spandau district on 10 September 2015.
Modamani's image was subsequently shared on Facebook on anonymous accounts, alongside posts falsely claiming he was responsible for the Brussels Airport bombing of March 2016 and the setting on fire of a homeless man in December by six migrants at an underground station in Berlin.
The case is being closely watched as Germany, a fierce critic of Facebook, is preparing legislation to force the social networking website to remove "hate speech" from its web pages within 24 hours or face fines.
"Some people are trying to harm the reputation of the refugees like me and they are using Facebook to spread hatred against us," Modamani told Reuters by phone from Wuerzburg.
A spokesman for Facebook said the company had already removed two defamatory posts reported by Modamani's lawyer but could not simply disable all content related to the pictures. Facebook was open to a case by case approach, the spokesman said.
"We have already quickly disabled access to content that has been accurately reported to us by Modamani's legal representatives, so we do not believe that legal action here is necessary or that it is the most effective way to resolve the situation," the spokesman said.
Facebook said it had asked Modamani and his legal team to point to posts and content that could amount to defamation and that it was willing to look into each case separately.
"They have so far refused to do so despite us providing clear instructions as to the precise information that we require," Facebook said in a statement.
Angela Merkel Takes Selfie With Brussels Terrorist. Still wonder why Germany is flooded with rapefugees?#BanIslam pic.twitter.com/fYRPkOuAEK
— Stop Islamization (@rally_texas) May 10, 2016
One post still shared on Facebook shows Modamani taking a selfie with Merkel against the backdrop of a homeless man on fire at an underground station in Berlin with the caption: "So that 'cold country' finally has warmth under its behind".
The Wurzburg court has scheduled a public hearing on 6 February to decide whether an interim injunction should be served against Facebook Europe. The company’s spokesperson would not comment on whether it would send a lawyer to the hearing.
The case comes as Germany’s justice ministry weighs up new laws that would force social media companies to set up clear channels for registering complaints and hire legally qualified ombudsmen to carry out deletions.
Online platforms that fail meet such legal requirements could be hit with fines calculated on the basis of their global annual turnover or face on-the-spot fines of up to €500,000 if they neglect to remove posts in breach of German hate-speech law within 24 hours.
Modamani is currently learning German and working at a fast-food restaurant in Berlin. In an interview with the tabloid Bild published last August, he said he had not known who Merkel was when he took the selfie, merely inferring that she must have been an important person because of the throng of people around her. Other Syrians had informed him later, he said. “After that I knew she was the boss of Germany.”
Similar case
The German case, to be heard on February 6, has similarities with a case from before Christmas in Austria. A Green Party leader there secured a court injunction against Facebook, forcing it to remove fake news and hate speech posts about her.
The Austrian court agreed with the Green Party that, even if Facebook is only a technical platform rather than a publisher of information, it still has legal obligations to prevent the spread of inciteful or untrue information.