Case Summary and Outcome

The Hungarian Curia upheld the judgment of a lower court, finding that Meta was entitled to remove a politician’s Facebook account for breach of its Community Standards. László Toroczkai, the leader of the Our Homeland Movement political party, had written four posts on Facebook which Meta found violated its hate-speech restrictions and led to Meta removing his Facebook and then Instagram accounts. The Curia upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal which found that Meta was entitled to remove the Facebook account but not the Instagram account as the content was only posted on Facebook.

Facts

In April and May 2019, László Toroczkai, the leader of one of the opposition parliamentary parties in Hungary (Our Homeland Movement) published a total of four posts on Facebook.

The post on April 4 read: “Pillory – re-commissioned in Hungary. In accordance with the promise I made last year, the nation’s first twenty‑first‑century public pillory has now been completed. In addition to its tourist appeal, it will henceforth exhibit the offences and identifying characteristics of those criminals who rob their fellow citizens, break into others’ homes or courtyards, or commit any form of criminal act, ranging from Creole‑skinned strangers wandering into our area to entrenched white‑collar offenders. We must expel them from our community and, in our own interest, keep them at a distance; hence, we need to know them and their deeds.”

The post on April 26 read: “I personally bulldozed a criminal organisation’s restaurant to the ground, sowed its site with salt, and am personally purging the settlement of newcomers arriving from Romanian (Transylvanian) Roma encampments who arbitrarily seize and occupy houses. We don’t just talk, we don’t make empty promises. We act.”

The post on May 6 read: “That’s how much order there is in this country: In the video, the frenzied ‘proto‑human’ seen in [settlement name] a month ago assaulted a young man from behind, without any provocation, striking him down in the street and inflicting injuries which required more than eight days to heal. The authorities thereafter apprehended him, only to release him – notwithstanding that this convicted ‘human‑beast’ belongs to the large clan that has terrorised the town for decades. Thus, in recent days the ‘wild man’ was able once again to rampage, attacking innocent, unsuspecting Hungarian residents purely for his own amusement. This is the […]‑led state under which the government so ‘protects’ its people. And [settlement name] remains one of the last surviving ‘capitals’ of the […] where the mayor has maintained a conspicuous silence on these matters for years. Had such terror occurred in [settlement name] today, by the time it reached the main square our pillory would already have confined this ‘proto‑human’ – and his entire cohort – without delay.”

The post on May 14 read: “We have once again demonstrated how results can be achieved even from the opposition; resistance does make sense. All it took was my announcement of our march and the elevation of the long‑suppressed terror in [settlement name] to a national issue, and the Prosecutor’s Office immediately reversed its previous outrageous decision. At last, yesterday the Prosecutor’s Office ordered the arrest of the ‘wild man’ – who, despite having committed multiple assaults, had been left at large – but he fled from the arriving officers and, during his escape, violently stole two cars before ultimately being apprehended. In doing so, he committed further crimes, namely the felonious appropriation of two vehicles. Finally, even the local […]‑affiliated mayor has spoken out – albeit only to claim that our so‑called ‘political agitation’ was unnecessary – yet that intervention would never have been needed had he done his duty instead of cowardly burying his head in the sand for years. Thanks to our call to action, letters continue to pour in, revealing appalling conditions in the town and indeed across the entire country – situations that, until now, neither politicians nor the media, aside from us, have addressed. This includes the fact that yet another Roma‑party leader publicly threatened us rather than condemning such criminals, even threatening to block the roads should we dare to march in [settlement name]. In light of all this, we have even more reason to be there on 21 May at 7 p.m. Let us show that every Hungarian is responsible for every other Hungarian – we stand by one another. A cowardly people has no homeland; ours, however, has been, is, and will remain. This is our homeland!”

On May 17, 2019, the Facebook operator, Meta, removed László Toroczkai from the site, citing a violation of the Community Standards which restrict hate speech and in January 2020, Meta permanently terminated the politician’s Instagram page, which he used for private posts and photo sharing.

Toroczkai instituted an action for infringement of personality rights against Meta and sought an order compelling the company to pay a total of HUF 100 million (approx. US$300 000 in 2025) in aggravated damages.

The Metropolitan Court of Budapest, acting as the court of first instance, dismissed the case. The Court found that Toroczkai and Meta had entered into a contract for internet-based services provided by Meta, the content of which they were free to determine under the principle of freedom of contract. In determining the content of the contract, the Court noted that it should take account of Meta’s general terms and conditions, which became part of the contract because Toroczkai became aware of them and accepted them when registering. In its general terms and conditions, Meta delineated the parameters governing users’ access to the services – specifying which types of communications, statements, and re‑publications they may post and what content they may share – and, in order to safeguard the rights and interests of other persons using the social platform, defined those materials it regards as unacceptable, all in conformity with the principles incorporated into the contracts. The Court pointed out that the forms of expression not permitted and the sanctions for conduct contrary to them are defined in detail in points I.1, III.12 of its “Community Standards” document. Although the contractual definition of hate speech incorporates more stringent criteria than those prevailing in public discourse, the politician’s acceptance of the terms constitutes a form of self‑restraint that is not unlawful. The Court found that Meta could, on the basis of their content, classify the four posts as hate speech, for which the sanction could legitimately include the blocking of the politician’s pages and so there had been no breach of contract. The Court found that it was clear from the provisions of the Instagram and Facebook “Terms of Use” that Meta treats its two services as identical as the Instagram “Terms of Use” refer back to the Facebook “Terms of Use” and “Community Standards”, and so, by invoking the politician’s breach of contract on Facebook, Meta also contractually blocked the Instagram page.

Toroczkai appealed to the Szeged Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal partially reversed the judgment of the court of first instance and found that Meta had violated the politician’s personality right of maintaining contact by removing his Instagram account. The Court of Appeal concurred with the finding of the first instance court that a contractual relationship had been established between the parties, the terms of which were defined by the general terms and conditions (“Terms of Use”, “Community Standards”) separately formulated by Meta for the Facebook and Instagram services, and which, upon being reviewed and accepted at the time of registration, became part of the contract.

The Court of Appeal emphasized that the contract stipulates, as a sanction for violations of the “Terms of Use” and “Community Standards,” the suspension and permanent termination of access to the Facebook account. It emphasized that, under the principle of freedom of contract, Meta was entitled to determine which content it would permit to be published, and the politician was equally at liberty to decide whether to avail themselves of the service under those general terms and conditions, thereby consenting to a limitation of their freedom of expression. The Court of Appeal noted that the assessment of whether the contested posts can be considered hate speech can be decided on the basis of the content of the specific post published. It agreed with the first instance court on the issue that the content published in the post of April 26 constituted hate speech as, for the average reader, the post conveys the exclusion of persons of Roma origin, and the use of expressions such as “bulldozing” and “sowing with salt” likewise constitutes violent, aggressive speech directed at that group. The Court found that the background information and explanation adduced by Toroczkai in the proceedings cannot, for these purposes, be considered because it was on the basis of the content published that Meta had to judge whether it was in breach of the “Community Standards”.

The Court held that the terms used in the post of May 6 (“proto-human”, “human beast”) were also considered as speech that deprives people of Roma ethnicity of their humanity and incites violence. The fact that these two communications contravened the stated provision of the contract between the parties justified the removal of the politician’s social networking account on the basis of the contract. It therefore considered it unnecessary to analyse the other communications in detail.

The Court of Appeal held, however, that the fact that the Instagram service is a Facebook product does not mean that the breach of contract on the Facebook page automatically leads to the blocking of the Instagram page. In the contracts for the use of the Facebook and Instagram services, Meta has separately defined general terms and conditions. Toroczkai did not post on his Instagram page any content that – even by the platform’s own uncontested assessment – violated Instagram’s “Community Guidelines” or “Terms of Use” and so the suspension of his Instagram account infringed his personality right to maintain contact and therefore the Court ordered Meta to restore that account.

László Toroczkai brought a petition for review against the final judgment with the Curia.

Decision Overview

The Curia reviewed the petition. The central issue for determination was whether Meta was entitled to take action against László Toroczkai for the content of his Facebook posts.

In his petition for review, Toroczkai challenged the courts’ determination that the content of his posts of April 26 and May 6 2019 fell within the definition of hate speech set out in Part III of the “Community Standards”

The Curia held that the lower courts were justified in proceeding on the basis that, for this assessment, one need not adopt the interpretive framework established by the Constitutional Court for examining freedom of expression under Article IX(1) of the Fundamental Law. By registering to conclude the service contract, Toroczkai had accepted the general terms and conditions governing Meta’s services, and it was therefore the content of those terms that had to be examined in adjudicating the dispute. Consequently, in evaluating the alleged breach, it was not determinative what the politician himself considered to constitute offensive communication, but rather the contested content had to be assessed and qualified in accordance with Meta’s definition of hate speech.

As a result of its examination of the petition for review, the Curia upheld the final judgment.

In the aftermath of the case, Meta reinstated the party president’s Facebook page in December 2024, but removed it again after eight days. Since then, when Toroczkai’s name is entered into the Facebook search bar, the user is presented with the following message: “Are you sure you’re going ahead with the operation? The phrase you’ve googled is sometimes associated with the activities of dangerous people and organisations, and that’s not allowed on Facebook.” Clicking on the “more information” button brings up the message “this search may be related to violent, hateful or criminal activity”. [16 June 2025]