Facebook and France haggle over regulating online hate

Friday’s meeting comes amid concern about hate speech and disinformation around this month’s European Parliament elections. (Shutterstock)
  • Macron’s office is releasing a progress report Friday on a pilot project that allows French regulators to embed within Facebook’s facilities to observe how it monitors and removes racist or other content
  • Friday’s meeting comes amid concern about hate speech and disinformation around this month’s European Parliament elections

PARIS: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is meeting French President Emmanuel Macron as the tech giant and France try to pioneer ways of fighting hate speech and violent extremism online.
Macron’s office is releasing a progress report Friday on a pilot project that allows French regulators to embed within Facebook’s facilities to observe how it monitors and removes racist or other content.
Friday’s meeting comes amid concern about hate speech and disinformation around this month’s European Parliament elections. Macron is pushing for more online regulation on a European level, despite opposition from the US and free speech advocates.
Next week, the leaders of France and New Zealand will meet tech leaders in Paris for a summit seeking to ban acts of violent extremism and terrorism from being shown online.