The Union of Jewish French Students (UEJF) has sued Twitter and is pursuing further court action after the social networking site declined to expose names of anti-Semitic tweet authors, despite a French court ruling commanding their identification.
The case began in October 2012, when #UnBonJuif (a good Jew) and
# UnJuifMort (a dead Jew) became popular tags for posts on Twitter.
Over 350,000 tweets were posted.
In January, the French Court decision decreed that Twitter was
bound to hand over the names of the authors of the tweets. The UEJF
demanded that it release the names so that police action could be
taken against the authors for ‘hate speech’.
Twitter ignored the ruling, saying it was “currently reviewing
the court’s decision” at the time of issue. It was given 15
days to either give up the names, or file an appeal. The ruling was
exactly two months ago on Sunday.
It was said that Twitter would have to pay 1,000 euro
(approximately US$1300) a day until it gave up the names. Given the
time elapsed, it has left itself open to fines of around 44,000
euro (just over $57,000).
Action on this decision was still pending when UEJF filed the new
$50 million lawsuit with a Paris correctional tribunal earlier this
week. The lawsuit claims damages because of Twitter’s refusal to
provide names.
The French government said that the tweets were illegal as they
contravened laws prohibiting the publication of discriminatory or
racist hate speech.
Twitter argued that because it was based in the US, it was
therefore protected by the right to free speech enshrined in the US
constitution’s first amendment. Still, it did delete the offending
tweets.
Some neo-Nazi posts in Germany have also been filtered, and Twitter
suspended the account of a neo-Nazi group following a government
request last October.
“Twitter is playing the indifference card in not respecting the
decision of January 24,” Jonathan Hayoun, president of UEJF
told AFP on Wednesday.
“In protecting the anonymity of the author of these tweets it is
making itself an accomplice and offering a highway for racists and
anti-Semites.”
A Twitter spokesperson told CNET that the new filing showed that
the UEJF were “sadly more interested in grandstanding than
taking the proper international legal path for this data.” The
spokesperson went on to say that they would have filed an appeal
sooner had it not been for the UEJF’s intentional delay in
processing the court’s decision.
The UEJEF has said it will donate any financial gains to the Shoah
Memorial Fund, which focuses on preserving the memory of the
Holocaust.