Censorship: France Says Goodbye to Free Speech

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 06:40:03AM -0400, grarpamp wrote:
> https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16057/france-free-speech


Come on grarpamp!  This is getting ridiculous - France was supposed to be that final bastion of freedom ?!#@!

ESPECIALLY free speech!

>From the article above:

   - Private companies will now be obliged to act as thought police on behalf of the French state or face heavy fines.

   - "Under the pretext of fighting 'hateful' content on the Internet, it [the Avia law] is setting up a system of censorship that is as effective as it is dangerous... 'hate' is the pretext systematically used by those who want to silence dissenting opinions.... A democracy worthy of its name should accept freedom of expression." — Guillaume Roquette, editorial director of Le Figaro Magazine, May 22, 2020.

   - "What is hate? You have the right not to love... you have the right to love, you have the right to hate. It's a feeling... It cannot be judicialized, legislated." — Éric Zemmour, CNews, May 13, 2020.

   - Asking private companies -- or the government -- to act as thought police does not belong in a state that claims to follow a democratic rule of law. Unfortunately, the question is not whether France will be the last European country to introduce such censorship laws, but what other countries are next in line.

   With a new law, the French government has decided to delegate the task of state censorship to online platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat. Private companies will now be obliged to act as thought police on behalf of the French state or face heavy fines.

   On May 13, the French parliament adopted a law that requires online platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat[1] to remove reported "hateful content" within 24 hours and "terrorist content" within one hour. Failure to do so could result in exorbitant fines of up to €1.25 million or 4% of the platform's global revenue in cases of repeated failure to remove the content.

   ...



Making me angry now - the Western underminers just don't know when to quit, and grarpamp, you keep bringing it to our attention!

What are we sposed to do?!

  [Much redacted and very loud swearing...]