France To Social Websites: Delete Terrorism, Pedophile Posts In 1 Hour Or Pay Hefty Fine
In a new law, France has asked platforms to remove such content from sites within an hour.
Social media, just like everything else has a good and a bad side. On one hand you get a neverending stream of hilarious posts, a platform to connect with people you know and even communicate with.
Reuters
On the other hand, some use it as a medium to spread hate speech, terrorism as well as something as disturbing as pedophiliac content.
However, now the nation of France wants to stop spreading of such content on social media platforms, and it feels it is the responsibility of the platform to prevent such content from surfacing on their platforms.
Reported first by Reuters, In a new law, France has asked platforms to remove such content from sites within an hour, or face hefty fines that would amount to four percent of their global revenue.
France has also set up a government hate speech monitoring office and a special prosecutor for violators under this law. The law states that platforms will have 24 hours to purge other forms of prohibited ¡®manifestly illicit¡¯ content before they get heavily fined.
France¡¯s Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said, ¡°People will think twice before crossing the red line if they know that there is a high likelihood that they will be held to account.¡±
However, not everyone in France supported this idea. Online civil liberties defence group La Quadrature du Net (LQDN) said in a statement that it was unrealistic to think content could be withdrawn within the hour and the law was unnecessary.
Reuters
¡°If the site does not censure the content (for instance because the complaint was sent during the weekend or at night), then the police can force Internet service providers to block the site everywhere in France.¡±
On the other hand, Far-right National Rally party president Marine Le Pen said the law was ¡°a serious violation of the freedom of expression¡±.
Twitter France public affairs official Audrey Herblin-Stoop stated that the company would continue to work closely with the French government to help build a safer Internet and fight against illegal hate speech while protecting an open internet, freedom of expression and fair competition.
Yesterday we also saw Facebook launch an AI competition to train AI algorithm to detect hateful memes online.
