2023-07-04 22:06:37
Calls are growing in France for a temporary ban on social media following a torrent of videos and comments online emerged that young hooligans were vying for attention online and using the platforms to orchestrate attacks.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called on social media companies to remove inflammatory content, and right-wing politicians have called for restrictions on what they see as the toxic influence of TikTok and Snapchat in particular, the two platforms of choice for youth hooliganism.
Since the death of 17-year-old Nael Marzouk at the hands of the police last week, images of fireworks being thrown at policemen, thieves setting cars on fire, and videos containing satirical comments, often in the style of video games, have flooded social networks, registering hundreds of thousands. of likes.
Over the weekend, the five most popular videos using the hashtag “riots” included participants impersonating characters such as Batman, Spider-Man and Transformers, as well as clips of battles with the police set to Western-style music.
The TikTok platform instigate the use of algorithms that suggest keywords that direct users to videos of riots, and alert them to the locations of planned looting. One of these, last week, was “Chalet at 23”, an invitation to gather at 11 pm in the “Place Chalet” in Paris, to go to the looting theater on nearby rue Rivoli. On TikTok, the hashtag “France riots” has reached more than 2.2 million views, following three days of violence.
It was concentrated in Nanterre and other suburbs of Paris, in addition to neighborhoods in Lyon, Marseille and other cities, which were badly affected by the violence.
It took 24 hours for TikTok to remove the name and address of the police officer accused of killing Marzouk in Nanterre. The calls for restrictions came from the mayor of the coastal town of La Baule, Franck Le Verrier, who served as an adviser to former President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Macron’s aides said there were no plans to block any of the social networks, but the president wanted more cooperation from them.
The networks provide one source of help for the authorities, as the police use their data to help track down people seen committing crimes in the riots.
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