Social networks are a source of cyberbullying. The Government wants to fight against it with a new law.
Cyberbullying is a scourge that is difficult to get rid of. This is largely due to the fact that despite their popularity, social networks are not necessarily well regulated by law. And this one is, in any case, not punitive enough. This is in any case what seems to have been judged by the French Government, which has presented a new bill.
A brake on cyberbullying on social networks
It is difficult to establish an effective legal framework around digital technology. Internet, social networks… The task is all the more difficult as the people who make the laws are not always familiar with the environment. This was seen recently when a law to prevent excesses on the part of influencers was proposed. But this time, it is cyberbullying that is the subject of a new bill. This is about to be filed and aims to implement a digital ban.
Concretely, our colleagues from The Informed reveal that the Government is considering a 6-month ban for an Internet user guilty of harassment on social networks. This could be extended to 1 year in the event of a recurrence. The banned person could not, on paper, create a new account. He would even consider temporarily closing another account, created before the facts. In addition, the guilty person could be ordered to pay a fine of up to 375,000 euros. Sites that do not enforce the law could risk up to 75,000 euros in fines.
This bill for “securing and regulating the digital space” is a priori very well thought out. But legal vagueness is already emerging. First, its field of action is very broad. It would thus concern moral and sexual cyberbullying, but also linked to origin, religion, sexuality, or even gender identity. And already, many Internet users are rising up and denouncing an attack on freedom of expression. It will therefore be necessary to see how to dissociate dissociated opinions and reprehensible remarks.
But the biggest difficulty will be to enforce the law. For now, the way to operate remains rather vague. Twitter, Instagram and others could create a blacklist with phone numbers and email addresses. However, we can already imagine people guilty of cyberbullying getting around the problem easily. Who has never created a fake email address, or given a fake name online? As for blocking via the IP address, this could penalize all the occupants of a household. In short, many questions still remain unanswered, and it will be up to the Government to answer them.
