Twitter appeals France court decision ordering details of hate speech efforts News
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Twitter appeals France court decision ordering details of hate speech efforts

Laywers for Twitter confirmed on Saturday that the social media giant has appealed a Paris court decision ordering it to grant full access to documents detailing its measures to combat online hate speech. The order was rendered on July 6 and required Twitter to provide information on the “material and human means implemented” by it since May 2020 to six French anti-discrimination groups.

The summary decision arrived after the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF), J’accuse, SOS Racisme, SOS Homophobie, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) and the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP) took Twitter to court complaining that the platform’s hateful conduct policy is riddled with loopholes that allow hateful comments to remain online.

The court ordered Twitter to detail:

“any administrative, contractual, technical or commercial document relating to the material and human resources implemented within the framework of the Twitter service to fight against the dissemination of offenses, defense of crimes against humanity, incitement to racial hatred, to hatred against people because of their sex, orientation or sexual identity, incitement to violence, including incitement to sexual and gender-based violence, as well as attacks on human dignity ”.

The court had also ordered Twitter to share the number of reports received from French users as well as the number, location, nationality, the language of people assigned to processing reports from users of its French platform.

According to a study by the six anti-discrimination groups, Twitter only removes 11.4% of illegal hate tweets, although the number of hate content posted has increased 43% between March 17 to May 5.

The hearing for Twitter’s appeal has been set for December 9 this year. The Paris court had given Twitter two months to comply, which lapsed on September 6.