- The bill had started its parliamentary journey in April 2019 and has been repeatedly revised and criticized by several institutions for the defense of freedom in the digital world.
- The text provides for establishing an obligation for platforms and search engines to remove "manifestly" illegal content within 24 hours, under penalty of being fined.
- This is the first text unrelated to the coronavirus on the parliamentary menu since the start of the coronavirus epidemic in France.
After two months of confinement, and for the first time this Wednesday, parliamentary debates will not deal with the coronavirus epidemic. The deputies of the National Assembly are called to adopt, in final reading, the bill brought for more than a year by the deputy Laetitia Avia (LREM) on the fight against hate online.
Delayed by the health context, the application of this controversial text must be done "as soon as possible," said Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O 'during his hearing on May 5 before the Cultural Affairs Commission of the Assembly. Unraveled by senators, amended, reworked, the bill sparked heated debate between the two assemblies. What does this final version contain and what points continue to give rise to criticism and concerns from certain digital players? 20 Minutes takes stock.
What does the final version of the text contain?
Emptied of its flagship measure during its examination in the Senate, the bill to be adopted this Wednesday from 3 p.m. by deputies has returned to its original version. In the absence of agreement during the joint joint committee organized last January, it is the Assembly which will have the final say on this text as provided for by the accelerated procedure initiated by the government. Ardently defended by the deputy Laetitia Avia (LREM), the obligation for the platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter) to withdraw “manifestly illicit contents” within 24 hours appears well in the text. The penalty set out in the law could reach 4% of turnover. An amendment, added by the government in January, stipulates that this mandatory withdrawal period is reduced to one hour for terrorist and child pornography content. Constraining sites, operators, hosts to be permanently reachable if content falls under one of these two categories according to the police.
Asked this Monday by the Journal du Dimanche , on the lack of responsiveness of platforms during the period of confinement conducive to online hatred, Laetitia Avia tackles in particular "Facebook and Instagram, which are justified by the lack of means and the teleworking of their moderators ”. “The whole world has organized to be able to work from home: if the digital giants are not able to do it, who can? And this increase in traffic on social networks that we have observed, for them, is an additional income… They cannot refuse the responsibilities that go with it, ”launches the deputy.
The bill must also put in place a new single button for reporting hateful content on social networks, initiate the creation of a specialized digital prosecutor's office or even strengthen the role of the CSA in controlling the means of moderation engaged by the networks. social.
What criticisms and concerns remain?
Strongly mobilized on this subject, La Quadrature du Net (QDN), an association for the defense of individual freedoms on the Internet, judges the application of this law "unrealistic". “The obligation to remove illegal content already existed in reality. There, what is new is this 24 hour delay and the penalties incurred. But that seems unrealistic to us, and we saw it during the Christchurch attack. Facebook has taken considerable steps to remove the video from the attack and it was not enough. We imagine that for smaller platforms, this kind of procedure will be untenable ”, analyzes Arthur Messaud, lawyer for Quadrature.
The association believes that the law should have attacked more deeply the economic model of these platforms, which it believes participates in the promotion and dissemination of hateful and divisive content.
Senator (LR) Christophe-André Frassa, rapporteur for the text in the Senate, also believes that the application of the measure relating to the deadline for withdrawing content remains problematic: "It does not seem really realistic or applicable and especially it doesn will not stop hate professionals from continuing to practice online. This bill hits the mark. ”
The other component, added at the end of the parliamentary process by the government on the terrorism and child pornography component, worries Quadrature more, which denounces an "inadmissible drift". For the NDQ, the government should have gone further and approached the problem from another angle. In a press release issued on Monday, she noted: "If the site does not censor the content (for example because the report is sent on a weekend or overnight) the police can demand its blocking everywhere in France by the providers of Internet access. It is the police who decide the criteria for censoring a site (…) it is the police who judge whether a site should be censored; it is the police who carry out the sanction against the site ”.
Here again, Christophe-André Frassa abounds: “As it is, the law will lead to over-censorship. The interest of these platforms is not to be good students in the eyes of the French government but to protect their economic model. ” However, the possibility of seeing the deputies oppose the adoption of this text seems very slim recognizes Arthur Messaud: "We did a lot of lobbying but we had little time to discuss the text with the deputies on the shutter terrorism. We have no idea of the content of the debates, but two days after the deconfinement, I do not know if the conditions are ideal for talking about censorship, democracy and moderation ”.
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- LREM
- By the Web
- Law
- Censorship
- Cyber harassment
- Social media
- Racism
- Terrorism