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Twitter Sued For $50M For Refusing To Identify Anti-Semitic Users

Posted by Soulskill on from the feeding-the-trolls dept.

redletterdave writes "After a French civil court ruled on Jan. 24 that Twitter must identify anyone who broke France's hate speech laws, Twitter has since refused to identify the users behind a handful of hateful and anti-Semitic messages, resulting in a $50 million lawsuit. Twitter argues it only needs to comply with U.S. laws and is thus protected by the full scope of the First Amendment and its free speech privileges, but France believes its Internet users should be subject to the country's tighter laws against racist and hateful forms of expression."

3 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. I've been waiting for this... by FrankSchwab · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is an internet company responsible to the country that it operates from, or is it responsible to every country that they can be reached from?

    The second would be a remarkably scary result.

    --
    And the worms ate into his brain.
    1. Re:I've been waiting for this... by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Is an internet company responsible to the country that it operates from, or is it responsible to every country that they can be reached from?

      The second would be a remarkably scary result.

      This stuff has already gone to court. Google execs were charged with crimes in italy for YouTube videos showing bullying. Google ignored it and Italy couldn't do anything. If Internet was ruled by every law in every country then it wouldn't exist. Sorry France you lose.

      I think Italy arrested a few Google execs from Google Italy, which wouldn't be as scary - in which case as long as Twitter has no French connections (no servers, etc) then France can't do anything. If they do, France can go after the French company.

      (Which is basically OP's point 1 - since the company has operations in various countries, they have to comply with the law, but only in those countries).

      At the very worst, if a twitter exec was passing through France, they could potentially be arrested until the fine is paid for, I suppose.

      Since I don't think Twitter has any assets or anything in France, the French government can't do a thing unless they can convince the rest of the EU that it's worth pursuing through other EU assets. Maybe. They can also arrest any twitter exec passing through France, I suppose - the US does it.

      Of course, this would mean that while Twitter is protected by US laws, it's also subject to the whims of the US government, including those ones on copyright infringement and such.

    2. Re:I've been waiting for this... by DavidD_CA · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It amuses me to think that some low-level IT guy from Twitter might one day go to Paris for his honeymoon ... only to get arrested at the airport until a $50 M fine is paid.

      --
      -David