“Outlaw”: Twitter definitively condemned for its lack of transparency on moderation

Twitter is now “outlawed,” according to the terms used by the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF). On March 23, the Court of Cassation upheld a ruling by the Paris Court of Appeal, condemning Twitter to be transparent about its means of moderation, to fight hateful content.

The case dates back to a “test” carried out in 2020 by several anti-racist associations (including SOS Racisme and the UEJF), which had massively denounced racist and anti-Semitic content on Twitter, which the platform had not yet deleted, contrary to its obligations. legal.

Following a complaint, the Ireland-based company had been ordered by a court to reveal details of its moderation tools implemented to protect French internet users. A request that the platform has always refused to comply with.

“Inaccurate information”

“According to the Court of Cassation, Twitter, having not complied with its obligation to disseminate the means implemented in the moderation of hate content, does not have the right to resort to Cassation. […] As long as Twitter does not play transparency, it should be considered an outlaw”, explains the UEJF in a press release sent to Tech&Co.

In its order, which Tech&Co was able to consult, the Court of Cassation considers that the documents shared by Twitter after their first sentences contain only “general, imprecise, fragmented and insufficient information, as well as figures that we do not know if they refer to the whole world or only France.

In fact, Twitter, which now belongs to billionaire Elon Musk, will have to provide detailed information on the number of reports sent by French users for hate speech, but also the number of moderators dedicated to the French market.

Information that Twitter -like the other platforms- is already invited to provide Arcom (ex-CSA) every year, following the “fake news” law, but which, in fact, has never been shared.

Contacted by Tech & Co, Twitter responded with a “poop” emoji, which is now used at the request of Elon Musk to respond to all email requests from journalists.