France: Twitter hands over anti-Semitic tweets data
Micro-blogging site Twitter is complying with a recent judicial decision to hand over identification data for anti-Semitic and racist tweets, reports Le Monde Informatique.
In October last year, there was outrage after numerous anti-Semitic comments were posted on Twitter using the hashtags #UnBonJuif (a good Jew) and #UnJuifMort (a dead Jew). When alerted to the tweets, Twitter immediately removed them. The UEJF (French Jewish Students Union) and four other human rights and anti-racist organisations appealed to the courts to force Twitter to hand over personal details of users who had posted the tweets so they could be prosecuted under French laws against publishing racist and discriminatory hate speech.
In June 2013 the Court of Appeal in Paris dismissed a plea by Twitter and confirmed the social media site’s obligation to pass on the details of the authors of racist or anti-Semitic tweets to five human rights associations concerned.
Twitter announced yesterday that it had handed over the “data likely to enable the identification of certain authors” of anti-Semitic tweets. Twitter also regard this move as settling the dispute with the UEJF, which had directly criticised the social network and its CEO, Dick Costolo, requesting €38.5 million in damages. The parties to the dispute are now going to work together to fight racism. Twitter added that this included “taking measures to improve the accessibility of the reporting procedure of illegal tweets”.