Recently, a Jewish students union from France vowed to pursue a lawsuit against Twitter to a tune of US$50 million, accusing the microblogging site of allowing anti-Semitic posts that could fuel hate against Jews in France and lead to targeted attacks against the community. Such suits could have implications on the conduct of social media sites.
This is not the first time social media has been accused of harbouring racist and ethnic hatred. The Media Monitoring Committee in Kenya has said the greatest current threat to national cohesion is social media, referring to various networks including Facebook, YouTube and Myspace as ‘extremist sites’.
“We make an earnest appeal to the management of Facebook to fully implement its obligations under its terms of service since its statement on rights and responsibilities bars content of hate to be posted on sites,” said Mary Ombara, the secretary of the National Media Monitoring Committee.
Despite numerous requests by the Kenyan government to social media networks to block users engaging hate speech, the calls have gone unanswered.
Many legal pundits see cases such as that in France as the start of the process of taking social media companies to task over their users’ utterances.
In the case against Twitter, the social media site has been taken to task by students who say the company is aiding users who have tweeted racist and anti-Semitic remarks by refusing to hand them over to the authorities as ordered by a French court.
A French court ruling delivered on January 24 ordered Twitter to hand over the details of people who had tweeted racist and anti-Semitic remarks and set up systems that could alert the police in case of a recurrence of such Tweets.
According to the students’ organisation Twitter, by protecting the users’ identity, is “making itself an accomplice and offering a highway for racists and anti-Semites”.
The group is unhappy with the company despite it having taken down posts related to the case and thus having partly complied with the ruling.
Already the fine ordered on the company should it fail to comply is increasing, currently standing at over US$65,000. A successful ruling against the company could open a bottomless pit for social media networks. Individuals and organisations could pursue such networks rather than individuals engaged in the direct acts
For the social media sites, releasing members’ information could have far reaching consequences, including and not limited to loss of users and financial implications, hence the tight grip on the details.
This is as in an age where many feel the internet should not be governed. Many users would desist engaging in microblogging sites if they seemed to interfere with their freedom of speech.
However, the ruling could finally instill ethics into social media usage, especially if Twitter goes ahead and offers details of users engaging in questionable activities. But it is unfortunate that many countries in the developing world lack the mechanisms and laws to prosecute such cases.
