CJEU has made it effectively impossible to run a user-generated platform legally

Summary

EU’s Top Court Just Made It Literally Impossible To Run A User-Generated Content Platform Legally from the seems-like-a-problem dept The Court of Justice of the EU—likely without realizing it—just completely shit the bed and made it effectively impossible to run any website in the entirety of the EU that hosts user-generated content. Obviously, for decades now, we’ve been talking about issues related to intermediary liability, and what standards are appropriate there. I am an unabashed supporter of the US’s approach with Section 230, as it was initially interpreted, which said that any liability should land on the party who contributed the actual violative behavior—in nearly all cases the speaker, not the host of the content. The EU has always held itself to a lower standard of intermediary liability, first with the E-Commerce Directive and more recently with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which still generally tries to put more liability on the speaker but has some ways of shifting the liability to the platform. No matter which of those approaches you think is preferable, I don’t think anyone could (or should) favor what the Court of Justice of the EU came down with earlier this week, which is basically “fuck all this shit, if there’s any content at all on your site that includes personal data of someone you may be liable.” As with so many legal clusterfucks, this one stems from a case with bad facts, which then leads to bad law. You can read the summary as the CJEU puts it: The applicant in the main proceedings claims that, on 1 August 2018, an unidentified third party published on that website an untrue and harmful advertisement presenting her as offering sexual services. That advertisement contained photographs of that applicant, which had been used without her consent, along with her telephone number. The advertisement was subsequently reproduced identically on other websites containing advertising content, where it was posted online with the indication of the...