Several child protection associations, including the Parenthood and Digital Education Observatory (Open), will seize the French public authority for the regulation of audiovisual and digital communication (Arcom) to request formal notice from Twitter. According to the associations, the social network lets minors access pornographic, child pornography and zoophilic content.
>> Pornography: several associations demand formal notice from Twitter
“There are child protection laws that are in effect in our country. And we’re a little tired of Twitter-like platforms happily trampling them“, launched Monday on franceinfo Thomas Rohmer, director and founder of the Open. He hopes that the teams of Twitter France “will accept the dialogue” for “regulate things“.
franceinfo: Is violent content easily accessible?
Thomas Rohmer : These contents are quite easily accessible. Some are illegal, I’m talking about child pornography, zoophilic content, something that is not acceptable in 2022 on a platform like Twitter. This content is relayed by tweeters who share it with hashtags that are highly codified. However, we know the power of algorithms and we also know the desire of children and adolescents to sometimes scare themselves and to seek content a little to play the grown-ups. Obviously, not all children and teenagers will come across this content. But there are child protection laws that are in effect in our country. And we’re a little tired of Twitter-type platforms happily trampling them.
Why Twitter and not others? Is the problem more important on this social network?
Regarding the nature of the images and their violence, I can assure you that the content that is published is of absolutely unbearable violence, particularly concerning the women who are present in these videos. And then we are only small associations. We also try to go gradually. The idea is obviously not to suspend Twitter, but, at the very least, to start the dialogue, which we tried to do in July. And, for now, they have refused it.
Is there a moderation problem to control what is shared?
Clearly. Moderation and regulation of social networks in the broad sense of the term. Today, we know that the heart of the problem is really the regulation of these platforms. How to ensure that the laws are applied and in particular, that a child under 13 cannot very easily open an account on a social network. And between 13 and 15 years old, the law is very clear, you cannot open accounts without the authorization of your parents. We released a study in 2017 on the exposure of young people to porn content. We see that in the space of seven years, we have gone from an average age of 14 years to an average age of 10, 11 years. I think that we must now speed up and ensure that the texts which have been voted on by our assembly and also at European level are applied.
Do you expect the showdown with Twitter?
This is also why we rely on Arcom, which has powers that we other associations do not have. I dare to hope that the Twitter France teams will accept the dialogue and enter into a desire to regulate things to avoid this kind of thing. I remind you: this is content of absolutely extreme violence and for some, completely illegal.