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FILE – This file photo of April 26, 2017 shows the icon of the Twitter application on a cell phone in Philadelphia. Twitter announced Thursday, April 4, 2019 that it stopped blocking ads from the French government calling to vote after the authorities blamed him for being overzealous for enforcing a law banning false information. (Matt Rourke, File / Associated Press)
PARIS – Twitter said Thursday that it had stopped blocking ads from the French government calling for a vote after the authorities blamed it for being overzealous for enforcing a law banning false news.
The social media company changed its policy after its leaders met with representatives of the French government, claiming to have decided to allow such announcements "after many exchanges".
The French government had planned to use the social media campaign #YesJeVote or "Yes I vote" to encourage voter registration and encourage citizens to vote in the European legislative elections scheduled for May 26th.
The campaign would have aimed to promote his message with the help of sponsored tweets. However, the government said that Twitter had refused the ads because even though the company had changed its terms in February to comply with the false information law, it could not meet its transparency obligations.
The law, championed by President Emmanuel Macron and adopted last year, aims to fight against false information disseminated during election campaigns. It requires platforms to require transparency of funding for any sponsored political content in the three months preceding the elections. This means that the platform must reveal the identity of the funder and how much he has spent.
French officials had criticized the company. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner tweeted that his goal should be to stop content promoting terrorism, not voter registration.
Twitter said it clarified its policy because I wanted to "promote and protect the integrity of conversations" around elections.
The government said it was supportive of the changes, but suggested that Twitter had not gone far enough in enforcing the law on false information and in fighting the spread of misinformation online.
"Other platforms have already implemented these simple transparency obligations, demonstrating their technical feasibility," said the ministries of the Interior, Culture and Digital in a statement. "Some have even chosen to apply this rule of transparency in other countries", without specifying which platforms or which countries.
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