French legislators pass new law with an aim to curb online hate speech

On the 14th May, the French National Assembly passed a law that elaborates on the national position towards hate speech, which is, intolerance. The French legislators have made it plenty clear that they won’t be empathetic towards online hate speech. The new law fines social media companies if they do not delete certain content such as terrorism, child pornography and genocide denial within one to 24 hours of its posting. Additionally, this law strengthens the ability of the French government to fine social media platforms and increases the size of fines. The law is a lot similar to the laws and legislations as present in countries such as Ethiopia and Germany. Under its provisions, websites can be fined between €250,000 and €1.25 million for allowing hate speech to remain on their platform, although the method of enforcement has yet to be determined.

Some critics believe that this law grants the French government unprecedented power for censoring speech online, and thus curbing the right to speech.  Jordan Bardella, French Member of European Parliament, noted in a press release (which was in French) that “the obligation to remove any ‘manifestly illegal’ content … will have the foreseeable effect of automatic and a priori censorship of content by platforms without justice being able to to judge whether or not it is actually illegal. The freedom of expression and the French public debate will thus be put in the hands of private platforms.”