Social media networks are recently facing a suit filed against them by a couple of anti-racism groups due to "hate" content plastered on their platforms.
Legal action is being taken by the SOS Racisme, SOS Homophobie, and Union of Jewish Students against Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube, according to a Telegraph UK post. It has been uncovered by the groups that more than 500 examples of postings that were considered racist, homophobic, and anti-semitic based on recent survey results within a period of 2 months.
The groups' leaders agreed that the survey had raised such awareness with questions on the social networks' values, raising doubts whether they abide by the French law.
Dominique Sopo, SOS-racisme chairman, said that the social media platforms are more quick to censor content containing unwarranted body parts than hate-inciting opinions directed towards people and specific groups. Also, the groups' lawsuit was based on French law that relates to providers unable to ban or report the illegal content in a given time and escalate the sensitive matter to proper authorities.
In a previous post, acting Metropolitan Police chief Tim Goodwin had asked for a Twitter shutdown last 2011, largely due to the London riots.
French law strictly upholds its regulation on removing content which relates to the Holocaust or justification of terrorist acts in the country, as well as the promotion of hate-related content, according to Reuters. The groups claimed that Facebook only removed up to 34 percent of such content, whereas it was just 4 percent on Twitter and 7 percent on YouTube.
UEJF Sacha Reingewirtz said that the social media networks' refusal to cooperate in the campaign against hate is "unacceptable," in lieu of their company gains. Meanwhile, Germany was successful in its attempt to eliminate hate posts within these social media sites in one day last 2015.
