Ten days after being received by the Ministry of the Interior and asking it to do everything possible to stop the virality of violent content during the riots, social networks have made their first conclusions public. In the National Assembly committee, TikTok mentioned in particular the low rate of requests to remove content from Pharos.
headlights (platform for harmonization, analysis, collation and orientation of reports) allows any Internet user to report content published on the Internet for various reasons such as pedophilia and child pornography, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, incitement to racial and ethnic discrimination and religious hatred, fraud and financial scams or even terrorism and the glorification of terrorism.
Eric Garandeau, director of public affairs for TikTok France, spoke at the committee. In late June, TikTok set up a crisis unit “like we do for national elections,” he said. In the context of the riots, there was “the need to be even more present with supernumerary teams” to process the requests.
However, the requests for the Pharos platform were not very numerous: “only ten requests in the whole week” from the authorities, explains the representative of the Chinese giant.
TikTok’s moderation chain with the authorities is done at different levels, TikTok says. At the request of Pharos, “expedited emergency procedures” are put in place, so that the content is removed “within an hour”. The platform ensures that 600 French-speaking moderators work to monitor content posted in France. For about fifteen million French users.
“Users complaining about the riots”
On the Snapchat side, the Snap Map feature came into particular prominence during the riots. This map allows you to see the places where there is more activity: it shows in particular “hot spots”, symbolized by more or less red dots depending on the amount of content published.
According to Sarah Bouchahoua, head of public affairs at Snapchat France, the platform’s moderation work allowed only videos “of users who complained about the riots” to be displayed on the map in the last days of the riots.
On July 5, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told AFP that social networks “very quickly removed thousands of illegal content and suspended hundreds of accounts” while hailing a collaboration that “went very well.” However, the establishment of these companies abroad (in Ireland or the United Kingdom) prevents the French authorities from requiring them to respond favorably to their requests.
Source: BFM TV
