Illustrative image of anonymity on the Internet.

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Pixabay

  • As part of an amendment to the bill "consolidating respect for the principles of the Republic", a group of LREM deputies proposed to study the feasibility of lifting anonymity on social networks.

  • "This amendment asks the government to submit to Parliament a report on its feasibility and its consequences, within six months from the promulgation of the law", explains Sophie Panonacle, LREM member of the Gironde, at the origin of this text. .

  • The Secretary of State for digital Cédric O believes for his part that "the question of anonymity" online is "a very bad fight".

It is a sea serpent in the digital world.

The question of lifting anonymity on social networks is returning to the forefront of the political scene.

After the failure of the "Avia law" and the assassination last October of Professor Samuel Paty, targeted on social networks, the bill "reinforcing respect for the principles of the Republic", currently underway examination at the National Assembly, has been enriched with a component to fight against online hatred.

As part of an amendment to this bill, a group of LREM deputies proposed to study the feasibility of lifting anonymity on the Internet.

"This amendment asks the government to submit a report to Parliament on its feasibility and its consequences, within six months of the enactment of the law," explains

Sophie Panonacle, LREM deputy from Gironde, originally

to

20 Minutes.

of this text.

Anonymity encourages "a feeling of impunity"

According to the signatories of the text, social networks like Facebook or Twitter "lead to many abuses: dissemination of false information, unfounded rumors, attempts to manipulate public opinion".

The large platforms "serve, more and more often, as a medium for the dissemination of hateful messages and violent ideologies", specify the 17 parliamentarians, mostly LREM, who signed this amendment.

Believing that social networks "do not provide a satisfactory answer", they now consider that lifting the anonymity "would deter the authors of illegal content", and would also allow "to prosecute them immediately".

"Anonymity can, most of the time, encourage a feeling of impunity and lead to unacceptable abuses with disastrous consequences", they specify.

“The use of a pseudonym - we are not going to speak of anonymity but of pseudonymity - today puts the authors of illicit comments to the shelter.

And that cannot go on any longer, ”adds Sophie Panonacle.

The objective of this amendment is therefore to be able to trace more easily to the authors of illegal, hateful or legally punished content.

“My idea was above all to alert the government to the concerns of the French.

I see it in my riding and everywhere else.

Today we are seeing the development of online hatred, and ever more violent content on social networks.

The news constantly shows us that it is an extremely worrying situation, ”explains LREM deputy from Gironde.

The issue of online anonymity is "a very bad fight"

Debates about anonymity and hate online have been a recurring topic since the rise of social media.

The issue of hateful content on the Internet returned to the center of the news last October, following the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.

At the end of the year, a wave of anti-Semitic insults targeting Miss Provence, one of the candidates for the Miss France competition, also strongly reacted to the political class.

"The pseudonymity must be lifted so that the authors of these publications are brought to justice," said LR boss of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand.

If many elected officials agree to designate anonymity - or rather pseudonymity - as responsible for the explosion of hateful content online, verifying the identity of Internet users seems in fact today almost impossible to implement.

In their explanatory memorandum, the signatories of the amendment - rejected on Friday evening in committee, but which could come back to the Chamber in the next few days - have also admitted that the lifting of anonymity "could not s. 'consider without studying the consequences for freedom of expression'.

In a blog article published last October, Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O, for his part, considered that "the question of anonymity" online was "a very bad fight".

“We can have a personal appreciation of the courage of those who do not dare to take their words.

Nonetheless, these people are, most of the time, not anonymous but simply under a pseudonym and that the police and justice have the means to find them and to punish them ”, declared the Secretary of State.

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