Emmanuel Macron attacks Facebook and Twitter over online hate

The Head of State expresses his regret at the absence of the leaders of the main platforms, although they are the most concerned, during the annual gathering of the Christchurch Call, which was launched in 2019.

It was meant to be a symbol of the fight against extremism and terrorism online, but for Emmanuel Macron, it is above all evidence of the indifference of the major American platforms. On 10 November, the Head of State expressed his regret at the absence of leaders of major social networks, during the annual Christchurch Call rally.

This call came in the wake of the far-right attack that took place in New Zealand and targeted mosques. About 49 people were killed live on Facebook, where Internet users watched the sequence played out for several minutes. The video of the killing was also widely viewed on YouTube.

There is no president for US platforms

“For Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, editor’s note) and Editor’s note) was not available either in New York in September or here in Paris, meaning they no longer wanted to play. […] Emmanuel Macron expressed his regret that trust is waning.

As reported by the media The insiderNone of the managers of the major American platforms wanted to go to the event organized in Paris. Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Elon Musk (Twitter), and Sundar Pichai (Google) did not make the trip, despite growing threats from the European Union due to their weak moderation tools.

The President of the Republic therefore indicated that Twitter includes only “52 French-speaking moderators” (out of 13 million users in France). This is a number that the company was forced to publish due to new European regulations. For its part, Facebook Claimed 226 French-speaking moderatorsand an unknown part of it is dedicated to moderating content published in France by about 40 million users of the platform.