Help, my social media account has been blocked! What can I do?

We offer quick and competent help if your account has been blocked on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and others. As lawyers specialising in media law in Berlin, we are happy to help you take action against the blocking of your social media account.

Time and again, our clients tell us that their social media accounts are blocked without them being informed of the reasons. However, platform operators such as Facebook are not allowed to simply block the accounts of their users.

This was decided by the Federal Supreme Court in its judgments of 29 July 2021 – III ZR 179/20 and III ZR 192/20. The case concerned hate speech on the internet. However, the rulings also apply to all other major platform operators – and thus also to influencers, bloggers and politicians who are blocked on Facebook, Google, Google AdSense, Twitter and Co.

The case was about the limits of private platform operators determining what is still lawful in the state, what is no longer lawful and what is the protection of freedom of expression. For this is precisely what platform operators do when they regulate this according to their own regulations and think they are allowed to regulate.

The BGH has now put a stop to this, which has significant implications for all platform operators. According to this ruling, platform operators are in principle entitled, within limits, to require users of their network to comply with certain communication standards, even if these regulations go beyond the provisions of criminal law. However, comments may not simply be deleted and users blocked. Rather, they must be given the opportunity to comment in such cases.

Users who are merely informed that a conduct would violate some “internal guidelines” without being informed of the exact reason for the blocking, such as the blocking of a Google AdSense account, the Twitter account of an influencer, can therefore defend themselves. Such account blockings are illegal. Users must be granted the right to comment. This does not merely require a formal review procedure. Rather, the user must be informed of the reason for the blocking and given the opportunity to respond, followed by a new decision.

But even if such a review procedure has been carried out, the persons concerned may be entitled to have the blocking stopped.