The district court: Linoy Bar-Geffen can file a defamation lawsuit against the company in Israel

The district court today (Wednesday) rejected the appeal filed by Twitter against a decision given in September in the Magistrate's Court - in which it was determined that Linoy Bar-Geffen could file a defamation lawsuit against the company in Israel.
The lawsuit, for NIS 300,000, was filed by Bar Geffen in 2019 against Twitter (+ 3.89% 47.72) - after she asked her twice to remove an abusive and blatant tweet posted against her and her partner - and was denied. Only after contacting lawyer Guy Ophir and he turned to Twitter, the tweet was removed. According to Bar Geffen, her inquiries should have been enough to remove the tweet. She sued through Ophir Twitter and the fictitious profile from which the defamation tweet was sent.
In order to submit a statement of claim to a foreign defendant abroad, an invention permit must be obtained. Bar Geffen received the permit from the court and Twitter requested that the invention permit be revoked, through the office of Herzog Fox Ne'eman.
In September, Judge Gilad Hess of the Herzliya Magistrate's Court rejected the request to revoke the invention permit. He voiced extraordinary criticism in its severity against Twitter and her lawyers for filing a lawsuit in court with degrading and chauvinistic allegations against Bar Geffen.
Twitter submitted a request for leave to appeal to the Tel Aviv District Court. She claimed that the tweet was completely removed by the network within a day or two at most, and that the background to the tweet was the publication of another person, in another publication, that received a resonance and is found throughout the network. In addition, she claimed that Bar Geffen has no rivalry with American Twitter, but only Irish (the lawsuit is against both).
It was further argued that the conditions for the application of the "Notice and Removal" doctrine - which allows the platform to be held liable due to content published by a third party in cases where there was a request for removal and it was not met - are not met.
Judge Hedva Weinbaum Woletzky of the Tel Aviv District Court denied the request. She stated that Bar Geffen has a cause of invention by virtue of various possibilities - including the alleged damage caused to her in Israel, from a service provided by Twitter that deals with the provision of international services; And that it is a nuisance committed in the field of the state, published in Hebrew and can be viewed by all Israeli users. "There can be no doubt that the applicants should have expected that wrongful publications would cause harm, as otherwise they would not have qualified their liability, as they claimed, in the users' regulations," she wrote.
In addition, she wrote that at this stage the question of rivalry with the two companies has not been proven and Bar Geffen has a good cause of action against Twitter - the advertising is offensive and several days have passed in which he ran on the net and caused alleged damage. She added that also by virtue of the doctrine of "notice and removal" there is a good reason here, in addition to the fact that according to existing tests, Israel is the "proper forum" for managing the claim.
"Social networks cannot expect that those who wish to sue them will be required to go to a foreign court - which happens to be in the place where those networks established their offices. Against the ability to provide services worldwide, there is a risk of suing in these places," she wrote.
The judge referred to Herzog's lawyers' claim that the invention permit should be revoked due to Bar Geffen's lack of good faith, as she herself has a Twitter account and she approved the bylaws, and she herself had a loose tongue on Twitter and uses sexual expressions in her publications. The judge wrote that "this argument is good for her that was not raised." According to her, it is irrelevant that Bar Geffen has a Twitter account for the purpose of her lawsuit - and even if there were other publications, it does not dismiss her lawsuit.
Finally, she ordered Twitter to pay NIS 15,000 - after being charged NIS 20,000 in a magistrate's court - because they "argued at length for the purpose of the request, including arguments that had no place at all at this stage."
Twitter will now be required to file a statement of defense and conduct the trial in Israel, subject to its ability to apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.