A court in Northern Ireland gave Facebook 24 hours to provide the court with email addresses of users who posted “abusive” messages on the social network about a company in Belfast, whilst further information about those users had to be provided to the court within 10 days.
The abusive posts were spread over several months and were in relation to three employees of the company. Facebook said that the order would be complied with and the accounts from which the abusive messages were sourced would be closed.
The disclosure that is the subject of the court order is permitted under the Data protection Act 1998, under which organisations are permitted to disclose personal information when required to do so by an order of court or, on a general level, where necessary for the purpose of legal proceedings.