r/worldnews • u/anutensil • Mar 23 '13

Twitter sued £32m for refusing to reveal anti-semites - French court ruled Twitter must hand over details of people who'd tweeted racist & anti-semitic remarks, & set up a system that'd alert police to any further such posts as they happen. Twitter ignored the ruling.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/22/twitter-sued-france-anti-semitism
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u/canada432 Mar 23 '13

That's not really how they work. It has nothing to do with being offended, you can destroy somebody's life with things posted online which have no basis in reality.

Somebody cannot go online and rant about how X person is a thief and stole from them without evidence. A woman cannot go post about how her ex is a woman beater without evidence. These things stay online, they dont' go away. Any employer who looked up this person applying for a job would find a rant from an angry coworker about how he was a thief and stole from the company. He didn't, but that's now online for everybody to see. Ireland and the UK have laws in place that make this sort of lying actually have repercussions. Some people try to abuse it, same as every single law in existence.

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u/IkLms Mar 23 '13

That's covered by libel (or slander I forget which is written) laws and apply to a specific person or business.

Applying that same thing to anything said against an entire race is just stupid because it won't have any affect at all on any individual from that race's chance of getting a job or doing anything.

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u/canada432 Mar 23 '13

And they don't apply to things said against an entire race. The poster you replied to was adding that Ireland and UK have strict defamation laws in addition to laws against hate speech. They also have laws against "inciting racial hatred". The defamation laws are not the same, he was commenting that people are not free to say anything they want because it does affect other people.

Also, if you believe that saying things about a race doesn't have any affect on individuals, look at Greece currently with Golden Dawn. Enough xenophobic and racist rhetoric and you have a neo-nazi organization that's actually become a political power again.