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Lawyers vie for deadly tweet of the year award

Two French prosecutors have landed themselves in hot water after being caught tweeting during a trial, judicial sources revealed Wednesday.

Published: 28 November 2012 15:32 CET

The pair are being investigated over a Twitter exchange which suggests they were frustrated with the pace of proceedings in an attempted murder case in a court in the Landes area of southwestern France.

"Here's a jurisprudence question for you: a prosecutor who strangles the judge in the middle of a case, how long would he get?" read the opening tweet, to which his colleague replied: "I'll stand as a character witness!"

The banter continued in a similar vein and was picked up and published by local newspaper Sud Ouest.

It could not be accessed Wednesday as the two Twitter accounts involved had been deleted since the end of the trial last
week.

The two prosecutors have not been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

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Twitter appeals French court ruling on hate speech transparency

The Twitter logo is seen on a phone. Twitter has appealed a French court judgement requiring it to share documents with activist groups. Photo: Alastair Pike / AFP

In July, a French court ordered Twitter to grant six French anti-discrimination groups full access to all documents relating to the
company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applied to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter has appealed the decision and a hearing has been set for December 9, 2021, a judicial source told AFP, confirming information released by the groups’ lawyers.

Twitter and its lawyers declined to comment.

The July order said that Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fight homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as the offence of “condoning crimes against humanity”.

It also said Twitter must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

READ ALSO: French court orders Twitter to change smallprint over ‘abusive’ methods

The July ruling gave the San Francisco-based company two months to comply. Twitter can ask for a suspension pending the appeal.

The six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The groups campaign against homophobia, racism and anti-Semitism. Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media giants it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

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