The assassination of college professor Samuel Paty on Friday in Conflans Sainte-Honorine brings up the debate on the role of social networks.

Several videos would indeed have incited the killer to take action.

Convened by the government on Tuesday, the platforms are trying to highlight their moderation efforts.

DECRYPTION

As a result of Samuel Paty's assassination, social networks are once again in the eye of the storm.

The video of the student's parent targeting the teacher was posted on Facebook after his class on Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

Then, the assailant posted on Twitter the photo of the victim's corpse.

In response, many politicians are calling for more regulation of platforms.

The bosses for France of the big social networks are summoned by Marlène Schiappa, Tuesday at 10 am.

But can we say that they do nothing against hate messages?

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Millions of content sanctioned each year

On paper, social networks are making more and more efforts to filter hateful, violent and shocking content as well as possible.

Twitter and Facebook regularly publish reports on their moderation action.

We therefore know that last year, for example, Twitter suspended 270,000 accounts for inciting hatred and some 180,000 others for justifying terrorism.

At Facebook, it is reported that 15 million content related in one way or another to terrorism has been sanctioned since the beginning of the year.

And 99% of them were even reported by the community.

The problem is the remaining 1%, the blind spot, because it only takes a few minutes for hateful content to take effect.

In addition, certain content, such as the video of the student's parent calling for mobilization against Samuel Paty, is not always identified as hateful content.

A problem of definition pointed out for several years.

The meeting between Marlène Schiappa and the bosses of the French branches of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, TikTok and Snapchat could produce first advances.

The government wants tough penalties

The majority have tried to force platforms to better regulate online hatred with a law passed by LREM deputy Laetitia Avia, which aimed to encourage social networks to quickly remove dangerous or violent content, under penalty of heavy financial penalties.

But the text was emptied of its substance by the Constitutional Council in the spring because the risk that private companies could unanimously judge the nature of such or such content was too strong an obstacle to freedom of expression.

"Madame Avia's bill, which would have made it possible to remove the videos and prosecute this father has been censored," lamented Gerald Darmanin, Monday on Europe 1.

But with the assassination of Samuel Paty, a milestone has, it seems, been crossed at the government level.

"We cannot allow this kind of fatwas to be done online," insisted the Minister of the Interior.

A speech that finds echo with his colleagues.

"They think they are the kings of the world but Facebook is one of the greatest accomplices of terrorism", torpedoed another leading minister.

Minister who assures us that he will actively campaign for financial and massive sanctions on social networks in the event of breaches.