Twitter refuses a French government ad to respect the law against fake news

Twitter has decided to refuse to promote a communication campaign of the French government urging citizens to register on the lists to vote in the European elections. The social network argues that it can not afford it in the context of the law on the manipulation of information, called anti fake news, in force for a few months.

Twitter has refused to publish on its social network an advertising campaign of the Ministry of the Interior, reports AFP. The purpose of the advertisement was to encourage the French to vote in the European elections to be held in May 2019. Twitter justified this rejection by explaining not wanting to break the new law against fake news promulgated on December 22, 2018.

Twitter strictly enforces law against fake news

The "information manipulation" law compels platforms to provide users with information about the advertisements for political purposes that they disseminate. In this case, Twitter should have indicated the amount of compensation paid by the government to the service and communicate on the identity of the client, here the Government Information Service (GIS). Except that Twitter has not yet adapted and has no system in place that can display this information ergonomically. The platform has therefore decided to postpone any political advertising for the moment.

"Twitter's priority should be to fight content that glorifies terrorism. Not the campaigns encouraging to register on the electoral lists of a democratic republic ", regretted the Minister of the interior Christophe Castaner. "Twitter has decided to have a completely endless policy that is to cut any so-called political campaign," responded the management of the GIS with AFP. The latter believes that there is a difference between "an incitement campaign to vote" and "a political campaign or party".

And believes that it is a "baroud d'honneur on their behalf [Twitter] to be able to put on the table" some elements of the law anti fake news. As a reminder, this one was implemented to give more tools to the citizens when they see sponsored publications in the approach of electoral campaigns. On the social networks, many contents of misinformation are regularly put forward by the platforms, and would have even served the election of Donald Trump or the "yes" for the Brexit according to several report.