The Community Security Trust has called on Facebook to “put its house in order” after an Austrian court’s landmark ruling that the social media platform must remove abusive posts from its site worldwide.

The ruling was in response to a complaint brought by Austria’s Green Party, filed against Facebook’s Irish company, following the “trolling” of the group’s leader. It means Facebook may have to remove content globally if a court in one country rules it is illegal.

The CST welcomed the court’s decision, with a spokesman saying: “Social media companies need to understand that if they don’t put their own house in order, governments and law courts will do it for them.

“We will continue to work with Facebook and other companies to help them respond more quickly and sensitively to complaints about antisemitism on their platforms, and to find proactive ways to spot and remove hate content.”

CST have repeatedly asked Facebook to remove a page called Jewish Ritual Murder, previously titled truthaboutjews, which includes English translations of discredited Russian accounts of child deaths at the hand of Jews, as well as claims the Kabbalah movement openly mocks Christian victims of fake infant killings.

Regulation of material uploaded to social media sites is being sought across Europe. The European Commission, in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, published a code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online.

In December, the Commission reported 28 per cent of all notifications of alleged online hate speech led to removal of content, although only 40 per cent of complaints had been reviewed within 24 hours.

On May 1 the UK Home Affairs Select Committee said many websites are “shamefully far” from tackling the issue of abusive material, calling for the introduction of fines for failing to remove offensive material.