German court rules against Facebook in dispute over use of pseudonyms

The Federal Court of Justice of Germany ruled that the social media giant Facebook You must tolerate that certain users, long registered on the platform, use pseudonyms instead of their real names.

In 2018, the social network had blocked the accounts of a man and a woman, residing in Germany, on the grounds that the use of aliases contravened the conditions of use that require the use of the name that appears on identity documents.

Both denounced that access to their account was withdrawn and the case went through several instances, including the Munich Regional Court (south), which ruled in favor of Facebook.

However, this Thursday the Federal Court of Justice or Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) determined that the platform must allow users registered before 2018 to use pseudonyms if they wish, according to a statement released to the media.

Although they may use an alias, these users will still be required to inform Facebook of the name that appears on their identity document for internal purposes.

The reason for the temporary limitation is that until 2018, according to the German Telematic Media Act, users of this type of service should be able to use them anonymously or under a pseudonym whenever technically possible and there were no other reasons for weight that prevented it.

Therefore, the obligation to use the real name that appears in the terms of use of Facebook from January 2015 and April 2018 is not effective, according to the court.

However, according to the arguments of the BGH, in May 2018, regulation 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of personal data of natural persons entered into force, which does not contain any provision in this regard and leaves out of The provisions of the Media Law are in force.

The dispute between Facebook and the two users is part of a broader social debate about the use of pseudonyms on the network and its impact on the dissemination of content that incites hatred.

Some experts believe that anonymity favors the expression of this type of messages, a position that Facebook also adopts, while other social networks, such as Twitter, do allow the use of an alias.