The Paris prosecutor’s office estimated that the accusations of cyberbullying weighing on this group of journalists and communicators were not sufficiently characterized. A dozen members of this former Facebook group had been dismissed.
by Samuel Laurent
The case had triggered an uproar on social networks and led to a generalized debate on sexism in the media in 2019. The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed, Friday, February 3, having ended, a year ago, judicial of the LOL League by a classification without follow -up, estimating the offense insufficiently characterized.
This private Facebook group, created in 2010 by journalist Vincent Glad and who had around forty members, journalists or communicators, was accused of having been at the origin of the cyberbullying of several people, including women, too journalists or active on social networks.
Revealed in February 2019 by the “Checknews” section of Liberation, the case, a few weeks after the start of the #MeToo phenomenon, had experienced a global impact. History had been considered emblematic of a culture of toxic masculinity, while the group had several women among its members. Several associations, including SOS Racisme and take the front page, an association which militates for gender equality in the editorial staff, had seized justice, leading to the opening, by the Paris prosecutor’s office, of a preliminary investigation, entrusted In March 2019 at the proximity delinquency repression brigade (BRDP).
On social networks, Internet users had published a list of alleged members of the “League”. What sparked a wave of violent harassment towards the members of the group, without consideration of their individual responsibility, but with severe psychological consequences for several of them, according to many testimonies.
“unfairly lynched”
Several former members of the Facebook group had apologized in the days following the controversy. The excitement and embarrassment within several media quickly led to a wave of layoffs or cessations of collaboration for several alumni of the “League”, including Vincent Glad. Alexandre Hervaud, employee by Liberation, had been dismissed, as well as a dozen other members of the group employed by national media or communication agencies.
Decisions contested in justice, successfully in several cases. Starting with Vincent Glad, who obtained the liberation conviction in September 2021 for “dismissal without real and serious cause”. The daily has appealed. At the same period, the industrial tribunal also condemned the magazine Les Inrockuptibles, for the same reason, concerning the dismissal of its editor. Alexandre Hervaud, he had been dismissed in the industrial tribunal against Liberation, a decision which he appealed.
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