Dublin student wrongly accused of evading a taxi fare wins case
A Dublin student wrongly branded a taxi fare dodger in a viral YouTube video has won a major victory in a High Court action against tech giants Facebook and Google.
Eoin McKeogh is close to securing an order for all material arising from this clip to be taken down from the web permanently on a worldwide basis.
The court has found once Eoin McKeogh was wrongly accused of evading a taxi fare in a YouTube video "all manner of nasty and seemingly idle minds got to work on him".
"As seems to happen with apparent impunity these days on social media sites they said 'whatever thing first came into their vacant, idle and meddlesome heads'," added Mr Justice Michael Peart.
The video has been taken down but the 23-year-old now looks set to secure an order ensuring all online defamatory material arising from the posting will be removed permanently on a worldwide basis.
No easy task but the judge has ordered experts to report back to court on how this can be done.
While he appreciates tech giants like Facebook and Google, do not want to open the floodgates he has expressed surprise they have not been more helpful in this case given Eoin McGeogh's obvious innocence.
