Facebook agrees to name hate speech suspects in France

Landmark decision is 'huge news', according to French minister

The Facebook logo is displayed during the F8 Facebook Developers conference on April 30, 2019 in San Jose, California (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Facebook has agreed to identify people in France suspected of using hate speech on its platform.

It is the first time the social media giant will hand over identifying information to authorities about its users in cases that are not related to terrorism or violent acts.

“This is huge news,” said Cédric O, France’s minister for the digital sector. “It means that the judicial process will be able to run normally. It’s really very important, they’re only doing it for France.”

A Facebook spokesperson told The Independent that the firm will consider requests from French authorities for basic information in criminal hate speech cases.

"However, as we do with all court orders for information, even in the US, we will scrutinise every order we receive and push back if it is overly broad, inconsistent with human rights, or legally defective," the spokesperson said.

The deal follows meetings earlier this month between French President Emmanuel Macron and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Nick Clegg, who serves as the company's head of global affairs, also met with French ministers to discuss hate speech and fake accounts on the social network.

Facebook currently uses artificial intelligence to identify hate speech and fake accounts.

The firm defines hate speech as a direct attack on people based on what it refers to as "protected characteristics".

These include race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation and gender.

"We define 'attack' as violent or dehumanising speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation," Facebook's Community Standards state.

The IP addresses of anyone found to be carrying out hate speech will now be shared with French courts.