Now posting racial or anti- Semitism comments in social media can get one sued into serious troubles. Apparently, the French do not abide by the US’s freedom of expression since two France-based organizations have beseeched the social network against criminal charges. These organizations have filed a lawsuit accusing Twitter of not handing over the details of users who are found guilty of violating French laws. The organization has imposed a fine of 38 million euro over the social networking site since it has denied providing the French authorities with the details of racist users, who upset the laws by making inappropriate racial comments on the social networking site.
Few Twitter users have been seen posting comments over Jewish community and people. In October, there has been some posting over the site that upset a popular Jewish group. #UnBonJuif group meaning “A Good Jew” has been posted with some antagonistic comments. This action has created strong uprising in French Jewish Students Union (UEJF) and the “J’Accuse” organization took the case to a civil judge in January. Significant non communal groups have also joined hands in this initiative to ensure proper actions against the accusation of severe breach of racism and anti-Semitism.
So the #UnbonJiff group has demanded full location and identification details from Twitter authorities and also appealed to create a system that alerts against racial or inappropriate criticism. According to the petition, the system should sabotage the accounts of such people and they should be blocked from the website.
The anti-racism group’s lawyer Stéphane Lilti has said that the site was given two weeks time to counter replying to the civil complaint failing French Authorities will step ahead with the criminal proceedings. Since twitter has not responded to the allegation, the antagonists are upping the stakes.
They claim the amount of 38 million Euros approx 50 million dollars over the lawsuit, which if stamped over the multinationals, would serve as a wakeup call so that they design proper systems to track down inappropriate posts. This fine is also meant for users who post racist and negative comments which France will not tolerate. The lawyer also added the action is purely towards the racist people who spread asperity in the social media. The French authorities have also stated that they believe that twitter is hiding the US First Amendment act that grants freedom of expression. However, the amendment has no meaning in France where laws prohibits the publication of racist or anti-Semitic comments.
Whatever is the fate of these proceedings, the reality of the otherwise perky social networks like twitter and Facebook is that they come unwontedly with vandal crowds, who totally misuse the meaning of freedom of expression.
