OLG Nürnberg; 2020-08-04; 3 U 3641/19
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:DE:OLGNUER:2020:0804.3U3641.19.00
Date: 2020-08-04
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Germany

82020DE0804(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A private person domiciled in Germany (hereinafter the ‘plaintiff’) filed an action against the German subsidiary of the operator of the social network platform Facebook (hereinafter the ‘defendant’) due to the deletion of her comment.
On her Facebook user account, the plaintiff commented a post of a third party which showed an online video where a person born of migrant parents refused to be checked by a female police officer due to her gender. The defendant deleted the comment of the plaintiff citing a violation of its applicable standards regarding hate speech and blocked her Facebook account for three days.
The Landgericht Regensburg (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’) ordered the defendant not to delete specific parts of the plaintiff’s comments or to block her account again. The action was dismissed as for the remaining part of the comment of the plaintiff with the Court of First Instance stating that it was not covered by freedom of speech.
The appeal lodged by the plaintiff with the Oberlandesgericht Nürnberg (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) was not successful.
The international jurisdiction of German courts followed from Article 7(1)(b), Article 17(1)(c) and Article 18 of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1) due to the consumer character of the matter.
The incorporation of a new version of the terms of use with stricter provisions regarding hate speech on Facebook into an existing contractual relationship was not ineffective because the user had been presented the choice to accept the new conditions, which she did by continuing using her Facebook account, or to end the contractual relationship. These measures on the part of the defendant were subject to its sole discretion within its entrepreneurial freedom protected by law.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of the plaintiff against the decision of the Court of First Instance. Based on the appeal of the defendant, the Court of Appeal changed the decision of the Court of First Instance and dismissed the plaintiff’s action to its full extent.
(1) Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.