In a ruling dated July 17, 2017 (Ref.: 324 O 826/16), the Hamburg Regional Court ruled that the Stern.de author does not have to allow himself to be labeled a “fake news producer” or “news falsifier” by an online blog.

It was about a case that caused a worldwide sensation – namely the Syrian 7-year-old Twitter girl Bana al-Abed.
She allegedly tweeted about her life in the middle of the Syrian war.
The surprising thing: All the tweets were written in near-perfect English.

Online blog uses the words “fake news producer” and “fake news”

The online blog “Blauer Bote” reported sceptically on the young girl’s tweets and at the same time criticized all those who spread the news without scepticism.
The Stern.de author was also affected, and the online blog took particular issue with his words “fake news producer” or “fake news“.
According to the author of the online blog (Bernert), Stern.de was spreading “false reports for propaganda purposes“.

LG Hamburg: Use of “fake news producer” and “news faker” in reporting inadmissible

The Hamburg Regional Court has now prohibited Bernert from using such wording.
The reason for the prohibition is that Bernert would otherwise accuse Stern.de of intentional dissemination of untrue facts.
However, he could not prove this because he had no insight into the working methods of the Stern.de editorial team.

Hamburg Regional Court agrees with the opinion of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court

With this ruling, the Regional Court went against its own previous decision in the preliminary injunction proceedings.
There, it had not yet granted the injunctive relief sought by the Stern.de author.
In the appeal proceedings before the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg (judgment of 14.02.2017 – 7 W 16/17), however, individual applications for injunctive relief by the Stern.de author were then granted.

However, Bernert then appealed against this decision again, which is why the proceedings went back to the press chamber of the Hamburg Regional Court.
The court made it clear right at the beginning of the hearing that it would follow the decision of the Higher Regional Court.

The judge went on to emphasize in the oral general meeting that she did notwant to“take Bernert’s opinion“.
Bernert was allowed to continue to claim that he had doubts about the Stern.de story about the then seven-year-old girl.
He only had to refrain from using words such as “fake news producer” or “fake news”.

Disproportionately high amount in dispute of the OLG

The Regional Court corrected the judgment of the Higher Regional Court with regard to the amount in dispute.
After the OLG had set the amount in dispute at an unusually high EUR 100,000, the LG reduced it to EUR 50,000.
This means that the losing party – in this case Bernert – will nevertheless incur costs of EUR 5,000-10,000.

The online blogger Bernert continues to be outraged by the judgments of the OLG and LG.
He said he was merely pointing out the missteps of journalism and trying to encourage readers to take a critical view of reporting.
And now, as a family man and private blog operator, he is being sued by a media company with a lot of money behind it.

Bernert is not prepared to accept this and has announced that he will also take legal action against the latest ruling by the regional court.