German Federal Court refers Meta liability case to EU Court

The German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has referred a legal dispute between Green Party politician Renate Künast and Meta to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The case centers on a meme circulated on Facebook that falsely attributed a quote to Künast regarding integration and the Turkish language.

Künast is seeking an injunction and at least 10,000 euros in damages. A key legal question is whether Meta, as a hosting provider, is obligated to proactively search for and delete all substantially similar variants of a reported illegal post, or if its responsibility is limited to removing only the specific URLs reported by the user.

The BGH seeks clarification on how the Digital Services Act and data protection laws apply to platform responsibility, specifically regarding recommendation algorithms and the duty to monitor content without violating the prohibition on general monitoring obligations.