25 Jan 2013

Details of anti-Semitic tweets wanted by court

12:11 pm on 25 January 2013

A court in France has ordered Twitter to hand over details of French users who post anti-Semitic or racist tweets on the social media site.

The Union of French Jewish Students brought a case last October arguing that many tweets break French laws that prohibit incitement or racial hatred.

The BBC reports anti-Semitism groups hope to identify the users and have them prosecuted.

In October, Twitter agreed to remove French tweets circulating with the hash tag #unbonjuif (#agoodjew) after the UEJF successfully argued that numerous messages had breached French law prohibiting incitement to racial hatred.

But the hash tag continued to circulate on Thursday with offensive messages.

The court also ordered Twitter to set up a system that would allow users to alert the site to illegal content which constituted "apology for crimes against humanity and incitement to racial hatred".

Earlier this month, the UEJF reported that a new racist hash tag, #sijetaisnazi (#IfIwasaNazi), was trending.

UEJF vice-president Sacha Reingewirtz welcomed Thursday's court ruling.

"It is a major precedent and breakthrough in the attempt to balance privacy online with the need to combat hate speech," he told JTA, a Jewish news website.

Nuno Wahnon Martins, director of European Affairs at Jewish human rights agency B'nai B'rith International, said:

"Social networks were created as essentially democratic tools that are also being used by people who oppose democratic principles."

"Like any democracy, the social networks also need to defend themselves, and the first step is to deny those who spread hate speech in anonymity as something to hide behind," he told JTA.