Meta – Court Ruling (Germany, 2026)

A company operating a financial education portal and a YouTube channel with about 1,5 million subscribers and one of its co-founders (the plaintiffs) had repeatedly requested the operator of two large social media platforms (the defendant) to erase content posted by fake accounts. Users not associated with the plaintiffs had created profiles and posted advertisements under names resembling the plaintiffs' trade marks as well as featuring photos and deepfake videos of the co-founder. If users of the social media platforms followed the links in the posts, they were directed to groups on the defendant’s messaging app where fraudulent investment options were promoted. The plaintiffs had reported these incidents using the defendant's "Brand Rights Protection Tool", reported approximately 256 violations within a month, assigned a full-time employee to monitor the violations, and sent the defendant a formal legal warning. Erasing the infringing content took between 0 and 62 days, and more fake content appeared almost daily. Following the unsuccessful attempts to get the content removed, the plaintiffs filed a lawsuit requesting an injunction and damages. They based their claims on provisions of copyright law, data protection law, trademark law, and personality rights. The plaintiffs argued that the defendant could not invoke the liability exemption for hosting service providers under [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj/eng Article 6 DSA]. They also stated that the co-founder featured in the infringing content could base his claims on Articles 17 and 82 GDPR for the injunction and damages respectively, as the photos and videos featured in the fake content contained the co-founder’s personal data. According to the plaintiffs, the defendant was acting as a joint controller within the meaning of Article 26 GDPR with the profile owner or advertiser. The court held that the defendant was liable for fake profiles on its social media platforms under the DSA. It grant