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Moving city is no excuse to quit the gym: court

Nomadic fitness fanatics across Germany suffered a blow on Wednesday, after the country's top court ruled that moving to a different city is no grounds for breaking a contract with your gym.

Published: 4 May 2016 16:33 CEST
Moving city is no excuse to quit the gym: court
Breaking out of a gym contract in Germany takes more than upper body strength. Photo: DPA

A 36-year-old man who moved from Hanover to Rostock because of his job as a navy sailor should not be allowed to cancel his contract with a gym in the first town, the judges at the Federal Court of Justice said.

The judges wrote that only someone with an “important reason” that would prevent them from seeing a contract to its end – such as serious illness or pregnancy – should be able to get out of a gym contract early.

“The reasons for moving home – whether they are caused by family or career – are as a rule completely on the customer's side and can be influenced by him,” the judges found.

The gym operator fought the case all the way to the highest court in a bid to recover a total of €719.90 in membership fees.

But with an estimated 10 million gym contracts active across the Federal Republic, the case could have had massive implications for gym bunnies and gym operators everywhere.

SEE ALSO: Munich court tells lawyer he isn't worth €8,000 an hour

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COURT

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts

A French court has ordered Twitter to give activists full access to all its documents relating to efforts to combat racism, sexism and other forms of hate speech on the social network.

Published: 7 July 2021 10:03 CEST
French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts
Photo: Alastair Pike | AFP

Six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to grant the campaign groups full access to all documents relating to the company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applies to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fighting homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as “condoning crimes against humanity”.

The San Francisco-based company was given two months to comply with the ruling, which also said it must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

The ruling was welcomed by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), one of the groups that had taken the social media giant to court.

“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the UEJF said in a statement on its website.

Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence, or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media businesses it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

French prosecutors on Tuesday said they have opened an investigation into a wave of racist comments posted on Twitter aimed at members of the country’s national football team.

The comments, notably targeting Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe, were posted after France was eliminated from the Euro 2020 tournament last week.

France has also been having a wider public debate over how to balance the right to free speech with preventing hate speech, in the wake of the controversial case of a teenager known as Mila.

The 18-year-old sparked a furore last year when her videos, criticising Islam in vulgar terms, went viral on social media.

Thirteen people are on trial accused of subjecting her to such vicious harassment that she was forced to leave school and was placed under police protection.

While President Emmanuel Macron is among those who have defended her right to blaspheme, left-wing critics say her original remarks amounted to hate speech against Muslims.

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