By blocking the accounts and groups of Społeczna Inicjatywa Narkopolityki (SIN, the Civil Society Drug Policy Initiative), Meta has infringed on the organization’s personal rights. On Wednesday, a Polish court issued a watershed decision in a case supported by the Panoptykon Foundation, thereby confirming that Internet platforms cannot block users at will. The court also confirmed that banned users have the right to sue in their own country.

There is little point in telling Facebook which posts you do not want to see – it will not listen.

The first court hearing in the case between a Polish NGO and Meta took place before the Warsaw District Court on 7 February 2023. The hearing was conducted almost four years after the organisation sued the internet giant for deleting its accounts and groups  without a prior warning or an explanation.

The District Court in Warsaw (Appellate Division) upheld its interim measures ruling from 2019 in which it temporarily prohibited Facebook from removing fan pages, run by the Polish NGO “SIN”, on Facebook and Instagram, as well as from blocking individual posts. This means that – until the case is decided – SIN’s activists may carry out their drugs-related education on the platform without concerns that they will suddenly lose the possibility to communicate with their audience. The decision is now final. What does it mean on the broader scale?