The Constitutional Council had been seized by deputies of rebellious France (LFI) on this text, which provides up to a year of imprisonment and 250,000 euros fine in the event of refusal to comply with the withdrawal of Contents of an online terrorist nature.
Le Monde with AFP
The Constitutional Council gave its green light, Saturday August 13, to the bill La République en Marche (LRM) which requires all the service providers to withdraw “content of a character terrorist “online.
The rue de Montpensier had been seized by deputies of rebellious France (LFI) on this text, adopted at the end of July, which adapts a European regulation and resumes partly one of the flagship provisions of the Avia law. The latter had been largely found by the Constitutional Council in July 2020.
By virtue of the law validated on Saturday, the refusal to comply with the withdrawal of the content of a terrorist nature is liable to one year of imprisonment and 250,000 euros fine. The financial sanction can, extreme case, go up to 4 % of the turnover of the digital platform. The law validated on Saturday by the Constitutional Council also establishes the possibility, for the authorities, nationals to issue trans-boring withdrawal injunctions.
In their appeal, LFI deputies estimated that the text brought “a manifest attack on the freedom of expression and communication guaranteed by article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789”. in its decision , The Constitutional Council considers that “the disputed provisions do not ignore the freedom of expression and communication” and “therefore judges them in accordance with the Constitution”.
safeguards sufficient for the Constitutional Council
He notably emphasizes that terrorist contents “constitute abuse of freedom of expression and communication which seriously affect public order and the rights of third parties”. The withdrawal injunction must also “include not only the reference to the type of content concerned, but also a sufficiently detailed motivation”, is underlined the council in its decision.
The Central Office for the Fight against Crime Linked to Information and Communication Technologies (OCLCTIC), a judicial police service, has been appointed to issue withdrawal injunctions. A qualified personality of the Arcom (Authority for regulating audiovisual and digital communication) may recommend the cancellation of a withdrawal injunction if it considers it unfounded, or even in urgency administrative justice. Thus, “the determination of the terrorist nature of the content in question is not left to the sole assessment of the administrative authority”, notes the council.
Finally, the possibility for hosts and web publishers, who would dispute an injunction of withdrawal, to obtain a decision of administrative justice within 72 hours and within a month in the event of appeal, constitutes, in the eyes of the wise men , “short deadlines”.