Facebook Argentina fined over fake profiles

Buenos Aires, Dec 3: Facebook Argentina was ordered to pay a firefighter one million pesos (USD 177,000) for failing to comply with an order to delete insulting fake profiles of the plaintiff, the Ministry of Justice has said.

The plaintiff, whose identity was not disclosed, called on the social network for over a year to delete fake profiles by people who wrote insults related to a labour dispute.

Yesterday, judge Carlos Cadierno ordered the firefighter be compensated and the company to pay a 50,000 peso (USD 5,900) per month penalty.

The case began in April, 2013 and initially the plaintiff did not ask for compensation, the ministry of justice's news agency said. According to the plaintiffs' counsel, Facebook made "excuses" for why it didn't need to unsubscribe users who attacked his client online.

Notification of the court decision was sent to the social network's offices in Argentina and in the United States, the plaintiffs' lawyers said. The judge issued the first favorable ruling for the firefighter a year ago, but to date the profiles are still active.

Contacted in Buenos Aires, Facebook Argentina declined to comment. In Argentina, Facebook has 23 million active users per month, and about 1.2 billion active monthly users worldwide.

AFP