January 17, 2022, Twitter was judged by the prosecutor of Versailles for not having helped justice to identify users of offensive messages targeting an official of the prefecture of Yvelines. According to The world, the maximum fine was requested by the prosecutor, to repress Twitter France and its director general, Damien Viel.
Twitter, a network that has become “asocial” according to the prosecutor of Versailles
This is a first in France. Such a judgment had never been required with regard to a social network. Here, the prosecutor of Versailles reproaches Twitter for refusing to provide information on two Twitter users, having made abusive remarks against an official of the Yvelines prefecture in March 2021. In the context of this case, two offenses were therefore retained: the “refusal to respond to a requisition” and the “complicity in public insult”.
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During the hearing, the prosecutor did not mince words to make the director of Twitter France understand the background of his thoughts on the evolution of the platform and social networks more broadly. He believes that the “Twitter moderation is a total failure” and that the social network has become in his eyes “a totally asocial network, which can undermine public peace and the proper functioning of our society”. It must be said that the comments made by the two Twitter users, were particularly virulent.
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It all started in March 2021. At the time, the prefecture of Yvelines published a message with a photo showing its secretary general assisting in operations to check compliance with the curfew. It is under this tweet that a user of the social network responds by comparing the police to the police of Pétain. Another anti-vax activist, opposed to the measures imposed by the government, describes the head of the prefecture as “Nazi”, adding a second message that read: “We should hang him at the Liberation that one”.
Very violent messages, not so rare on Twitter, that the prefecture of Yvelines did not want to let pass. The Versailles prosecutor’s office immediately opened an investigation for “insult”. It is at this precise moment that Twitter enters the dance. To go further, the parquet needed the identity of the two users in question. The gendarmes then sent a requisition to Twitter France, which did not respond favorably. Damien Viel, the managing director of Twitter in France, tried to defend himself by explaining that his company “does not store data”.
For Karim Beylouni, Damien Viel’s lawyer, “the transmission to French justice of the information it requests depends on the goodwill of Twitter International, which is outside French jurisdiction and which chooses to cooperate or not”. A judgment will be rendered on March 21, 2022.