French court forces Twitter to reveal its moderation measures

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 06/07/2021

Twitter has been instructed by a French court to provide clear details on what the company is doing to get to grips with hate speech, according to French Jewish student association UEJF that has published a statement on its website quoting a French court.

Several organisations had joined the students organization to put pressure on Twitter, like SOS Racisme, the Licra, J’accuse, SOS Homophobie and others.

This decision follows a legal action taken against Twitter by the associations after a test that demonstrated omissions in the moderation of hate content on the part of the platform.

Twitter is ordered by the court to, within two months disclose information on:

• all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents relating to any technical or manual measures taken by Twitter against the dissemination of hate speech against apologies for crimes against humanity, hate speech against people because of their race, sex, or sexual orientation, or any incitement to violence, especially sexual or sexist.
• the number, location, nationality, language of people assigned to processing reports from users of Twitter in France
• the number of reports from users in France, for cases of defending crimes against humanity and inciting racial hatred, the criteria and the number of subsequent withdrawals;

When it comes to hate speech on social networks, the responsibility is double, says the press release. Individuals who think they are anonymous, but also the social media platforms who think that their internal control systems can replace the law.

‘By its decision, the French justice shows today that the big tech companies cannot impose their own law. Twitter will no longer be able to let hatred spill over its platform without any consequences. Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop tackling and think ethics rather than profit and international expansion”.