#keepingtabs

Twitter Turns Over Data to France

After losing the battle to protect user IDs in appeals court.

Is free and anonymous speech no longer guaranteed on Twitter? The company has agreed to follow a judge's order to turn over data to the French government that will help identify users breaking French law by publishing anti-Semitic material. In an attempt to protect its customers's free speech, Twitter had been battling rounds of appeals in France's courts, but eventually acquiesced to the demands. The lawsuit began when the French Union of Jewish Students took Twitter to court, requesting personal information of users who had tweeted offensive comments with the hashtags #UnBonJuif (a good Jew) and #UnJuifMort (a dead Jew).