French court to Twitter: Hand over names of racist tweeters

A French court ruled today that Twitter must turn over the identities users who post racist tweets.

(Credit: Illustration by James Martin/CNET)

Twitter must hand over the identities of users in France who post racist tweets, a French court ruled today.

According to AFP, the court's ruling stemmed from a test case "that pitted the right to free speech against laws banning hate speech," and answered a petition made in October by the French Union of Jewish Students (UEJF), which had claimed that many anti-Semitic tweets had violated the law in the European country.

The UEJF had demanded that Twitter do a better job of policing obviously anti-Semitic tweets.

Twitter said today in a statement that "we are currently reviewing the court's decision."

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  by Daniel Terdiman via CNET