French President Emmanuel Macron has floated the idea that those convicted for crimes of hate speech could be banned from social media networks permanently.
President Macron floated the idea at the annual dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIR) saying that a new bill to fight against hate speech online was being tabled for May of this year broadcaster BFMTV reports.
While the bill is being floated at a time where Jews are facing rising levels of real-life anti-Semitic attacks driving whole communities out of French cities, the proposal to stifle speech online comes as President Macron faces unprecedented levels of criticism from the anti-government Yellow Vest movement. The French state has cracked down hard on Yellow Vest activists, arresting 8,400 protestors in just a matter of months.
“The European fight must continue, but it is too slow,” Macron said and compared banning those convicted of hate speech from social media to football hooligans being banned from attending football matches.
How the government will enforce the ban remains unclear with Secretary of State for Digital Affairs Mounir Mahjoubi saying, “the IP address is what Twitter has on each user who publishes a message on its platform. It must, as soon as possible, send it to the justice system to quickly identify the author and then ‘we can continue’.”
“It is no longer acceptable today that platforms that have the means to help justice and the police to identify the person who has committed an offence online take several weeks, even months, before giving the information,” Mahjoubi said.
Some have reacted to the proposal with criticism including French journalist Gabriel Robin who said the proposal could lead to anti-establishment voices, such as mass migration critic Eric Zemmour being totally excluded from social media.
“Never, I repeat, ever has a liberal government taken so many repressive measures,” he said.
While Macron and other globalist politicians have pushed for ever increasing laws and regulations to combat hate speech and so-called fake news online, the new proposal would mark a significant shift to the current punishments of fines and prison sentences.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com
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