In this mailing:
- Judith Bergman: France's Determination to End Free Speech
- Majid Rafizadeh: Iran: The Ayatollah, Amid Coronavirus, Calls for Jihad Against the Jewish State
by Judith Bergman • May 26, 2020 at 5:00 am
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. (Images source: iStock)
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.
The scope of online content deemed "hateful" under what is known as the "Avia law" (after the lawmaker who proposed it) is, as is common in European hate speech laws, very broadly demarcated and includes "incitement to hatred, or discriminatory insult, on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability".
The French law was directly inspired by Germany's controversial NetzDG law, adopted in in October 2017, and it is explicitly mentioned in the introduction to the Avia law.
by Majid Rafizadeh • May 26, 2020 at 4:00 am
It is mystifying that Twitter, which wantonly censors so much, continues to allow... Iranian leaders to spread Nazi-inspired language and anti-Semitic sentiments on its platform. In general, "Big Tech" -- Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter -- have long since ceased being "neutral" transmitters of information as if they were "utilities". Instead, they have become America's Thought Police. They urgently need to be regulated the same way media is.
The ruling mullahs of Iran need to be held accountable by the international community for threatening to annihilate a fellow- member of the United Nations, the Jewish state. Not only are these threats unacceptable according to Chapter I: Article 2(1)-(5) of the Charter of the United Nations... They are also unacceptable as part of a double-standard in which the United Nations and the international community continue to be silent about Iran's threats against Israeli citizens -- not to mention Iran's malign actions against its own citizens. Perhaps the time... is long overdue... for the U.S. to cease funding the UN, which seems only to conserve injustice and war.
Under no circumstances should the US, the UN or any other entity -- read: Europe -- in any way be assisting the malign mullahs of Iran.
It is mystifying that Twitter, which wantonly censors so much, continues to allow Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (pictured) and other Iranian leaders to spread Nazi-inspired language and anti-Semitic sentiments on its platform. (Photo by Punit Paranjpe/AFP via Getty Images)
Instead of concentrating on assisting and improving the living standards of its citizens, the ruling mullahs of Iran seem to be prioritizing the advancement of their anti-Semitic agenda.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently called Israel a "cancerous tumor to be destroyed," promised "to support any nation or group that fights Israel," and urged the Palestinian militant groups to cooperate more closely with each other and "expand the field of jihad in all Palestinian lands."
The Iranian regime has, since its Islamic revolution of 1979, been among the world's leading sponsors of terrorist organizations that target Israel. Some of the leaders of terrorist groups have surprisingly admitted that Tehran is their military and financial lifeline and that their survival depends on Iran.
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