In rulings dated June 30, 2017, the Higher Regional Court of Saarbrücken (Ref.: 5 U 17/16 and 5 U 16/16) ruled that daily newspapers may continue to name the authors of hate comments in their own reporting.
This means that identifying coverage of hate comments on Facebook, for example, is generally permissible.
This is stated in a recent press release from the Saarland Higher Regional Court

Newspaper article mentions the full name of the author of hate messages

This case concerned the admissibility of newspaper articles about a so-called hate message published by a Facebook account on the Facebook page of the writer Akif Pirinçci.
The words: “Blow 8 x 9 millimeters into the brain of gender lesbians” were used.
When publishing the hate messages, the respective newspaper articles or press reports did not just quote the wording of the hate message.
Instead, they referred to the author by their full name.

Plaintiff invokes identity theft

After the author was made aware of the publication of his hate messages by a work colleague, he took legal action against the publication.
He claimed that he was not the author of the hate message.
His Facebook account had been “hacked” and misused.
The Saarbrücken Regional Court agreed with the author of the hate messages and granted him injunctive relief.

However, following an appeal by the press operators, the Senate of the Saarbrücken Higher Regional Court has now revoked the injunction.
After weighing up the interests of both sides – the general right of personality on the one hand and freedom of expression and freedom of the press on the other – the Senate has now deemed the identifying reporting to be permissible.

Identity theft only a pretext

In the opinion of the OLG, the plaintiff had indeed written the hate messages himself.

Notwithstanding this, the Senate is convinced of the plaintiff’s authorship after hearing him in person.
Accordingly, there is nothing to suggest that the plaintiff’s Facebook account could have been hacked or that his password could have been spied out by a third party.
Even on the basis of the plaintiff’s own description, it cannot be assumed that the statement in dispute was foisted on the plaintiff.
According to the impression gained by the Senate during the personal interview with the plaintiff, there is every indication that he wrote the post in question himself.

It is the task of the press to draw attention to grievances and misconduct

After finding that the plaintiff himself was the author of the hate message, the court continued: It is part of the task of the press to point out misconduct and that it should not, in principle, be relegated to anonymous reporting in order to perform its duties.
It contributes to uncovering grievances and initiating further clarification through further discussions.

Furthermore, the author of the hate message independently went public with the post on Pirinçci’s Facebook page.
Thus, the identifying reports in the newspapers do not concern his intimate or private sphere, but only his social sphere.
This is also the reason why he can only invoke his general right of personality with little weight and why little importance is attached to it.