Recently, Twitter has been asked by a French court to identify the users writing anti-Semantic and racial posts on the social network. French groups such as French Union of Jewish Students and SOS Racisme filed the lawsuit against the Twitter users. The users broke the French law against racist speech with the Twitter posts. Twitter does not need to reveal the identities of the users unless an valid court order in the United States. The question it revolves around is which country's laws have jurisdiction over content on the Internet. Europe has sent many complaints to Twitter before about hate speech and free expression. On their online help center, foreign law enforcement companies can seek users data through "mutual legal assistance treaty." It brings up the issue of the data stored in cloud from American Web companies and it worries the European lawmakers about whether the companies will share their data on Europeans with the American government under American laws that allows surveillance on foreign citizens. The French court asked Twitter to "set up, within the framework of its French platform, an easily accessible and visible system enabling anyone to bring to its attention illegal content, especially that which falls within the scope of the apology of crimes against humanity and incitement to racial hatred.” Other cases about hate speech and free expression could be avoided for Twitter again. The article shows not all countries have free speech such as the United States and other people in different countries are limited to what they can express. Also, American Web companies may have to change their policies to comply with other country's laws for hate speech and free expression. If not, more cases such as this one will continue happen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/technology/twitter-ordered-to-help-reveal-sources-of-anti-semitic-posts.html?ref=technology
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