Social media giants sued for ‘failing to act against racism’

FRANCE’S largest anti-racism group, its Jewish students’ union and a gay rights movement are suing three social media networks for failing to remove racist, anti-semitic and homophobic content.

In a joint statement yesterday, the Union of Jewish Students, SOS Racisme and SOS Homophobie said they were taking legal action against Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

The groups found “586 examples of content that is racist, anti-semitic or homophobic, denies the Holocaust or seeks to justify terrorism or crimes against humanity” in a social media survey they carried out from March 31 to May 10. Denying the Holocaust and justifying terrorism are crimes in France, as is propagating racist, antisemitic or homophobic messages.

“Only 4 per cent of this hate content was removed on Twitter, seven per cent on YouTube and 34 per cent on Facebook,” the groups said.

The chairman of SOS-Racisme, Dominique Sopo, said: “These platforms seem more shocked by bare breasts, which are quickly censored, than by incitements to hate people or groups of people.”

The lawsuit is based on French regulations for digital services that “oblige providers to suppress obviously illegal content within a reasonable time, and to notify it to public prosecutors,” according to the statement.

Representatives of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were not available to comment.