French government could cut off social media during unrest, says Macron

Reclipse@lemdro.id to World News@lemmy.world – 69 points – French government could cut off social media during unrest, says Macron
theguardian.com

Here is a summary of the article:

• French President Emmanuel Macron has said the government should have the power to control social media networks during periods of unrest.

• Macron made the comments during an interview with a French TV station. He was referring to recent protests in France against the government's cost of living policies.

• Macron said during periods of crisis, the government needs the power to "block content that goes against republican values and is clearly creating confusion and putting people's lives at risk."

• Critics say Macron's call for more government control of social media raises concerns about censorship and freedom of speech.

• Opposition politicians accused Macron of attacking fundamental French freedoms and wanting to restrict the free flow of information.

• Macron countered that social media networks are already heavily regulated in France over issues like hate speech and terrorist propaganda. He argued the government needed similar powers during unrest.

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If Macon persists in his autocratic style, I can't help but wonder—given France's historical penchant for the guillotine—what might be metaphorically 'cut off' next.

How can a modern democracy even consider doing this? I mean I am not fan of most social media but still, this sounds like something you would see in Iran or China.

The implementation of such measures in a democratic society should be viewed as an infringement on freedom of speech and expression, which are fundamental rights in a democracy. The balance between maintaining public safety and upholding civil liberties is a delicate one. Therefore, these measures must be considered as a last resort in extreme situations. The current situation doesn’t appear to be extreme.

How the frig they gonna cut off just 'social media's access? Or do they mean the big 3 or 4 sites only..

Same way Iran China Russia etc do it. Put up a Great Firewall, block all the people not protesting anything from accessing their psychosis generating social media sites, meanwhile the protesters all figure out how to work around it. The benefit to the government is that it pisses off the non-participants and makes it easier for the government to crush dissent.

So block everything and not just 'social media'. That's more my point

That sounds difficult. They would have to make a lot of exceptions in order to not shut down their economy. I've worked in China. Every foreign corporate building had a vpn allowed through the firewall, all the chinese workers had access to the global internet. It was a giant gushing hole. I think I asked and my chinese colleagues said that lots of chines tech companies also had global access. Now of course I also assume that the Chinese government monitored all the leaks, as they monitor everything else, as do we.

First they would try to block it on the ISP DNS servers. But this is easily circumvented if you know how.

My guess is he is just throwing out stupid ideas without knowing how to get them implemented.

he has no intention of implementing any of these measures. he's just saying what his voters want to hear

They'd mandate French ISPs and mobile carriers to block/disable the DNS records related tot he big social media companies. Anyone savvy enough to use encrypted DNS, non-ISP DNS, or a VPN would see no impact. That said, this would be a huge impact to many non-savvy users that are just important to protests as those of the savvy crew, like us Lemmy kin.

If Orban had said this, it would have been outrage, and rightly so. But liberal darling Macron says it and from luminaries like Verhofstadt there is only crickets...

(I'm using "liberal" in the European sense, not the US sense.)

Isn't this sort of policy what the fediverse is meant to distrupt?

They can block fb, twitter directly. But how will they block every instance on Fediverse?

Well, that will set a lovely precedent for other "free" democracies... the people are angry at you? Just take their voice! What could go wrong...