EUJS Files Joint Lawsuit Against Twitter

The European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) has joined forces with HateAid, a non-profit organisation in Germany, to file a civil action against Twitter.  

Photo: Nick Jaussi

Drawing attention to the platform’s insufficient moderation of content and in particular antisemitic posts and rhetoric, the subject of the lawsuit includes six antisemitic and illegal comments which Twitter failed to remove despite them being reported. This includes sedition, which goes against the 130 German Criminal Code, as well as antisemitic Tweets which contain trivialisation and denial of the Shoah.  

The main focus of the lawsuit is to highlight Twitter’s failure to adhere to their Rules and Policies, which are part of the terms of services for users. The terms of service state that the company will not allow for threats of violence and behaviour that incites hatred. Nevertheless, despite numerous complaints and reports to the platform, Twitter has failed to respond adequately and remove this harmful content. Therefore, one of the main aims of this lawsuit is to provide ‘clarification about whether users have a legal claim to enforce these Rules and Policies as part of their contract with social networks’.  

If they do, then individuals would have the power to flag, respond and react to hateful, antisemitic content and have a say in its subsequent removal. Rather than relying on the integrity and will of the social media platform to react and remove illegal content, individuals would have the right and legal capacity to call for a response and reaction by Twitter.