Kildare student takes tech giants to court over defamatory video

An Irish student’s battle with tech giants Facebook and Google returns to the High Court today, over a video which led to him being wrongly identified as a taxi fare evader.

Eoin McKeogh from Co Kildare wants all defamatory material arising from the internet clip to be completely removed from the web, forever.

He was wrongly named as the culprit in an online video clip of a man dodging his taxi fare.

A judge commented that this led to him being subjected to "a miscellany of the most vile, crude, obscene, and generally obnoxious comments" on both YouTube and Facebook.

The 23-year-old now wants all online defamatory material arising from the posting to be removed permanently on a worldwide basis.

Google and Facebook say EU directives mean they cannot be held liable for defamatory material created by users.

While accepting that the request is "no easy task", last May Mr Justice Michael Peart proposed a that experts should report back to court as to what steps could be taken to eradicate the offending material.

The case is due before the court today.