France: Pharos, the platform for the fight against “online fatwas”

The videos were widely reported on Pharos, the platform dedicated to illegal content circulating on the Internet.

PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP

Text by: Dominique Desaunay Follow

4 min

Pharos is the web platform of the French Ministry of the Interior, which allows Internet users to report online hate messages published on social networks.

Some 80 investigations have been opened since Friday evening, October 16, against the authors of messages of support for the killer of Samuel Paty and arrests have taken place on the grounds of apology for terrorism.

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This Platform for Harmonization, Analysis, Cross-checking and Orientation of Reports which is signed Pharos as its title indicates, was created in 2009. It depends on the Central Office for the fight against related crime. information and communication technologies.

The online service, managed by the Ministry of the Interior, allows Internet users to report content published on the Web for various reasons: pedophilia and child pornography, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, incitement to racial, ethnic and religious hatred, scams and financial scams, as well as the defense of terrorism on social networks.

Several

going in this direction had, moreover, been reported on the Pharos site, in particular the publication at the end of August by the assassin of Samuel Paty of a photomontage representing a false decapitation.

Repeated and unsanctioned hateful online messages that may have encouraged the terrorist to take responsibility for his act by posting the photo of his victim on his Twitter account.

The image of the atrocity he had just committed was accompanied by a sickening comment of satisfaction at his barbaric act.

Up to 7 years in prison

If the assassin's account was suspended as soon as possible, some Internet users had time to congratulate themselves on the killing.

Pharos police and gendarmes identified 80 of these messages of support.

According to the law, their authors fall within the scope of the apology of terrorism which consists, as a reminder, in justifying, excusing or presenting in a favorable light these criminal acts.

When the offense takes place verbally in the street, the sentence can go up to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros or 7 years in prison and 100,000 euros when these comments are made on the Web and on social networks. .  

But formally identifying the authors of these messages is not always easy for investigators.

Social platforms are often reluctant to cooperate with the authorities, even when there is a judicial requisition.

And the twenty police and gendarmes who work for Pharos are struggling to carry out their investigations.

This is the reason why the executive decided to strengthen the workforce by allocating significant resources to the platform.

Hateful Content Law in December

However, Pharos' services alone cannot solve all the problems.

The government announces that a law will be enacted in December to force social networks, as they had promised since 2018, to moderate hate content more effectively.

Some

on the networks prove to us, however, that the road will still be long, before extricating from the web the surge of filthy comments that have plagued the Web and social networks for too long.

All @Interieur_Gouv services are mobilized, in the street as well as online.

This morning I went with the directors @PoliceNationale @Gendarmerie to the police officers & #Pharos mobilized.

Together and in action against cyber-Islamism.

@GDarmanin @EmmanuelMacron pic.twitter.com/aBNsTC3dNa

  🇫🇷 MarleneSchiappa (@MarleneSchiappa) October 19, 2020

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