Facebook must help firm stop online trolls

Published Friday, 17 August 2012
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Social networking giant Facebook have been ordered to help a Belfast company identify and stop anonymous posters on the internet harassing the firm, two of its officials and an employee.

Facebook must help firm stop online trolls
Facebook have been given 24 hours to help the firm. (© Getty)

The High Court in Belfast heard on Friday that a series of messages had been posted by people using pseudonyms on Facebook over several months attacking the company.

But the firm hadn't been able to find out who was sending them.

Mr Justice Weatherup ruled that the company shouldn't be named after their lawyer Peter Girvan said identifying them would only draw more public attention to them which was what they were trying to avoid.

Facebook were given 24 hours to provide the email address of the posters and 10 days to supply more information about them.

A lawyer for Facebook said they would comply with the orders. He said the accounts of the posters had been closed.

No details of the Facebook messages were disclosed in the High Court.

The case was adjourned until 6 September.

© UTV News
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1 Comments
Nick in Belfast wrote (274 days ago):
It will be interesting to see if they comply. Precedent would suggest that they will not. Interesting also that the nature, if not the actual content of the messages has not been revealed. Will try and keep an eye on this one.
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