Twitter surrendered their data on Friday to the French government for them to find out the authors of anti-Semitic and racist tweets. This is upon court order of the French court in which the company lost over arguments of the Jewish and four other anti-racism groups.
The order came out in January for Twitter to hand over the data they need to complete the investigation for the legal action filed by France's Union of Jewish Students (UEJF) and four anti-racism groups. However, Twitter had been slow in their response which made the complainants sue the social networking company in March for 38.5 million euros ($50 million) as compensation for the damages they have caused for ignoring the French court order. The group will be donating the funds to Shoah Memorial.
Twitter clarified on a press release that their recent decision to provide the government the data it needs is legal and would like to support the government in order to fight racism and anti-Semitism. They will also collaborate on "measures to improve the accessibility of the procedure for notifications of illicit tweets".
The anti-racism groups had been pushing Twitter to implement stricter policies in the site because of the flooding of anti-Semitic messages last year using a hashtag #unbonjuif (#agoodjew). Twitter had already removed some of the antisocial tweets with this hashtag.
French President Francois Hollande also reminded the social networking site to comply with the court order.
In June, the court of appeals ruled that Twitter violated the law because it didn’t comply to the court order without giving any valid reason.
UEJF President Jonathan Hayoun said in an interview with AFP after hearing the news that Twitter had finally complied, "a great victory in the fight against racism and anti-Semitism" and "a big step in the fight against the feeling of impunity on the Internet".
"This agreement is a reminder that you cannot do anything you want on the Internet. Twitter will no longer be a conduit for racists and anti-Semites where their anonymity will be protected".
Twitter’s surrendering of users data to the French authorities is the first time that a U.S company had followed a policy called "country-withheld content". This policy gives them the control to block an account in compliance to the request of the court.