Jewish group wins Twitter order

on 24/01/2013 16:03:01

A French court has sided with a Jewish group seeking to identify authors of anti-Semitic messages that circulated on the social network Twitter.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to turn over to the French Union of Jewish Students whatever data it has that could help identify the account holders who posted the tweets last autumn.

The court also ordered Twitter to make it easier for users of its French website to report "illicit content" such as apologiesy for crimes against humanity and incitement to racial hatred.

Twitter is free to comply or not with the court order as the US company has no personnel or offices in France.

Last October, the company bowed to complaints and agreed to pull the anti-Semitic tweets, which included slurs and photos evoking the Holocaust.