Court Rules that Facebook Can be Sued for Closing People’s Accounts

According to a report by The Guardian, a teacher in France has won the right to sue Facebook over suspension of his account after he posted photo of Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World.

Photo Credit: The Guardian

The decision of the court is that Facebook can be sued in France over its decision to remove the account of the user who posted a photo of a famous 19th-century nude painting. There is no doubt; the ruling by the Paris appeal court has set a legal precedent in the country, where Facebook has more than 30 million active users.

The Appeal Court said that a court will now be entitled to hear the case of the 57-year-old Parisian teacher and art lover whose Facebook account was suspended five years ago without notice. His account was closed by Facebook without notice, on the day he posted a photo of Gustave Courbet’s 1866 painting, ‘The Origin of the World’, which depicts female genitalia.

According to the Plaintiff’s prayer to the court, he wants his account reactivated and he is also asking for €20,000 (£16,000) as damages.

Since the court made the ruling, several efforts to reach Facebook for comment over the issue has yielded no fruit as it has not given an explanation for the suspension of the man’s facebook account.

In what seems like disagreement over jurisdiction, Facebook’s lawyers had argued that such lawsuits could only be heard by a specific court in California, where it (Facebook) has its headquarters, and that French consumer rights law cannot apply to its users in France because its worldwide service is free. The appeal court in France dismissed those arguments and upheld a lower court’s ruling that French courts can hear cases involving users in France.

The appeal court said the small clause included in Facebook’s terms and conditions requiring any worldwide lawsuits to be heard by the Santa Clara court was unfair and excessive. In addition, the judges said that the terms and conditions contract signed by any user before creating a Facebook account fall under consumer rights law in France.

The lawyer representing the Plaintiff said: “This is a great satisfaction and a great victory after five years of legal action.” Stephane Cottineau told the Associated Press that the ruling has sent a message to all “web giants that they will have now to answer for their possible faults in French courts”.

“On one hand, Facebook shows a total permissiveness regarding violence and ideas conveyed on the social network. And on the other hand, [it] shows an extreme prudishness regarding the body and nudity,” he said.

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