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Twitter appeals French court ruling on hate speech transparency

Twitter has appealed a French court decision that ordered it to give activists full access to all of its relevant documents on efforts to fight hate speech, lawyers and a judicial source said on Saturday.

Published: 2 October 2021 12:53 CEST

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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LIST: Sweden's biggest seven 'me-too' cases

The ‘me-too’ movement broke out after a report on the extent of sexual assault accusations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017, and saw women across the world name-and-shame high-profile people in politics they accused of behaving sexually inappropriately, sexually assaulting, or sexually harassing them.

In Sweden, as elsewhere, the movement has had by far its biggest impact in the cultural sphere. We look at some of the biggest cases.

POLITICS

Tomas Eneroth (Social Democrats)

The former Social Democrat infrastructure minister, Tomas Eneroth, was in November 2021 accused of groping a female colleague at a party congress. Eneroth apologised for making his accuser uncomfortable and said he had not intended to touch her inappropriately.

Eneroth’s home district in the Social Democratic party investigated that accusation and decided not to take any action against Eneroth.

A public prosecutor dropped the case after interviewing witnesses present, saying that the contact had been “a fleeting touch” that could not be considered sexual harassment.

Kjell Ekelund (Social Democrats).

Kjell Ekelund, a Social Democrat regional politician in Jönköping, was found guilty in court and fined for slapping a party colleague’s bottom during a party conference in 2022. Carina Ödebrink, the regional chair of the Social Democrats, only called on him to step down after he was found guilty, but he was not expelled from the party.

Peter Lundgren (Sweden Democrats)

The former Sweden Democrat MEP Peter Lundgren announced that he was leaving his party in March 2022, after he was found guilty of sexually molesting a party colleague in a hotel room three-and-a-half years previously.

“After talks with Peter Lundgren we have come to a decision that the judgement in the high court makes it impossible for him to represent the party. He is therefore going to leave his membership in the party,” Sweden Democrat press secretary Christian Krappedal told TT.

The Sweden Democrats party took no action to expel Lundgren until he was found guilty in court. He continued in his role as an independent MEP.

CULTURE

Jean-Claude Arnault and the Nobel crisis

The accusations against Jean-Claude Arnault, the French husband of Katarina Frostenson, a senior member of the Swedish Academy, caused the award of the Nobel Price in Literature to be postponed for a year, and ended with Arnault being jailed for rape.

The accusations against Arnault were first published in a series of articles in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper in which some 13 women, most of them anonymous, came forward to accuse Arnault, who had significant power in Sweden’s literary world through his cultural club Forum, of aggressive and inappropriate sexual behaviour, and even rape.

One of the women later reported him for rape to the police, and he was found guilty both in Stockholm District Court and when the case went to appeal at the High Court.

Martin Timell

The Swedish TV presenter Martin Timell was removed by the broadcaster TV4 from the programmer Äntligen hemma (finally home) in 2017 after he was accused of sexual harassment, and the channel later stopped any work with Timell.

Timell was reported for rape in November 2017, and was found innocent of all charges both in court and at appeal. He received 8.9m kronor in damages from TV4.

Benny Frederiksen

Frederiksen was CEO and theatre chief at Stockholm City Theatre. He resigned in December 2017 after he was hit by accusations of presiding over a culture of sexual harassment at the theatre. He committed suicide in March 2018, after which a preliminary report from the investigation the theatre launched into the allegations concluded that there were in fact no one at the theatre had accused him of sexually inappropriate behaviour.

Fredrik Virtanen

After Jean-Claude Arnault, Sweden’s most high-profile ‘me-too’ case have been that against the culture journalist Fredrik Virtanen.

Cissi Wallin, an actress and feminist commentator, on October 16th 2017, accused Virtanen of raping her in 2006, even though she had reported the alleged rape to the police in 2011 and the case had been laid down.

Virtanen was first suspended from his job at Aftonbladet, then deprived of his column, and then fired.

In January 2018, Virtanen sued Wallin for libel. She was found guilty, fined, and ordered to pay Virtanen 80,000 kronor in damages. When she appealed, Sweden’s high court increased the damages to 100,000 kronor.

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