A court in France ruled that Twitter must disclose to anti-racism groups all documents related to its efforts to eliminate racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and discriminatory hate speech from its platform.
Six anti-discrimination organizations had taken Twitter to court in France, charging that the American social media giant had “longterm and persistent” failures to remove hateful content from its site, reported AFP.
Twitter was ordered by the judge to give the organizations complete access to all documents related to its attempts to fight hate speech in the last twelve months.
The court’s move was applauded by the Union of French Jewish Students.
“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the Union of French Jewish Students said in a statement.
The court’s ruling concerns Twitter’s global operations, not just its business inside France.
It was given two months to comply with the ruling.
The order also stated that Twitter has to reveal information about its team of moderators in France, specifying the number of staff it employs in the country to examine posts flagged for potentially harmful content.
Twitter was given two months to comply with the order.
The company, which is based in San Francisco, California, told AFP that it was studying the court’s decision.
Twitter’s hate speech policy bars users from promoting violence, and threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender and other forms of discrimination.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)