French court sides with Jewish student union as social network firm comes under renewed pressure to combat racist, extremist messages
ynet
A French court on Thursday ordered Twitter Inc to help identify the authors of anti-Semitic posts or face fines of €1,000 ($1,300) per day, as the social network firm comes under renewed pressure to combat racist and extremist messages.
The order, requested by a Jewish student union and rights groups, concerned anti-Semitic material but could open the floodgates to legal pursuit of Twitter users who post a wide range of messages deemed illegal or offensive.
“This is an excellent decision, which we hope will bring an end to the feeling of impunity that fuels the worst excesses,” said Stephane Lilti, lawyer for the groups who sought the ruling.
The anti-Semitic messages started appearing last October, and have since been deleted.
The Paris court gave privately-held Twitter, whose general policy is that it does not control content posted on its network, 15 days to hand over data identifying people who have published messages judged anti-Semitic.
The court also ordered Twitter to set up a system in France that helps people draw attention to illegal content. Under French law, people found guilty of inciting racial hatred can be jailed for a year and fined.
Twitter’s lawyer in France, Alexandra Neri, declined to comment.
Failure to comply would expose the firm, founded in 2006 and now boasting 140 million monthly active users worldwide, to daily fines of €1,000 if the groups who sought the order request it, which Lilti said they would not hesitate to do.
A rights group involved in the case was quick to point out that the injunction, while limited to a case of anti-Semitic traffic, set a precedent that could also have a wider impact.
“This marks a decisive step forward in the battle against racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic offences on the Internet,” the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) said in a statement.
“Nobody can ignore French law, not even the giants of the American digital economy.”
For a first time, Twitter deployed a new message-blocker in Germany last October to jam the posting of messages by a neo-Nazi group banned by police.
A tool Twitter calls “country withheld content” allows it to censor tweets considered illegal in a given country.
#1 by annebeck58 on January 26, 2013 - 6:44 pm
I thought France had more guts than this.
Wonder how much change I’ll see from my tweeps.. or how many posts of mine might be blocked from them. We all know they would consider most anything posted, here, as offensive to them, and I tend to tweet a lot of the posts.
Do they truly think blocking free-speech is going to change free-thought, or will this also blow up in their stupid fake-semitic faces?
#2 by persnipoles on January 26, 2013 - 8:03 pm
Twitter: just leave France.
#3 by owainglyndwr1416 on January 26, 2013 - 8:25 pm
Well that’s me screwed then.. As if i could give a flying you know what..
#4 by KPRyan on January 27, 2013 - 1:51 am
No doubt a jew on the bench wrote the opinion.
Funny, because I always thought one had to ‘follow’ in order to receive tweets from another person. Consequently, if I were a jew and my panties got knotted up because I received a message on Twitter from someone I followed, and that message said something like: “Israel is an apartheid state” I could simply choose to no longer follow that racist bastard.
Turns out jews in france have no say over who or what they follow. Who knew? Since that’s the case, I guess I need to become active on twitter and begin writing my tweets for my French jewish audience.
#5 by Blake on January 27, 2013 - 8:48 am
Lol. Have to laugh at these self chosen rosens
#6 by lolathecur on January 27, 2013 - 1:27 pm
Laws that make truth illegal. Good idea. Coming to a city near you if it has not already arrived. The policies of israel thatt my government unanimously supports are offensive to the entire sane population. Does that make a difference? No. The islamophobic crowd spews crap all over the world. Make a difference? No. The anti gentileism of the religion of judaism taught over the world. Make a difference? No. One can say just about anything on any subject, but certain subjects can only be viewed through the perverted jewish looking glass. Get ready to drop to your knees and sing praises for anything remotely judaic. What a bizaarro planet I live on. For fear of the jooooz.
#7 by Iman on January 27, 2013 - 6:11 pm
The Jewish Gestapo
#8 by Andreas Z on January 28, 2013 - 7:35 pm
The Jewish Police.