Facebook must remove postings deemed as hate speech, an Austrian court has ruled, in a legal victory for campaigners who want to force social media companies to combat online “trolling”.The case – brought by Austria’s Green party over insults to its leader – has international ramifications as the court ruled the postings must be deleted across the platform and not just in Austria, a point that had been left open in an initial ruling.The case comes as legislators around Europe are considering ways of forcing Facebook, Google, Twitter and others to rapidly remove hate speech or incitement to violence.Germany’s cabinet approved a plan last month to fine social networks up to 50 million euros ($55 million) if they fail to remove such postings quickly and the European Union is considering new EU-wide rules.Facebook’s lawyers in Vienna declined to comment on the ruling, whoch was distributed by the Greens and confirmed by a court spokesman, and Facebook did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The man who created what is believed to be the world’s largest website dealing in images of child sexual abuse has been sentenced to 30 years in jail.Steven Chase set up the Playpen site on the Tor dark web network in early 2014.By the time it was shut down a year later it had more than 150,000 users and hosted more than 50,000 images and videos.The FBI said the removal of Playpen had led to almost 300 abused children being identified or rescued.What is the dark web?Chase was tracked down after accidentally disclosing the IP address of the server hosting the Playpen site. The way Tor works meant routine ways of locating a computer did not work.