On Tuesday, Euny Hong wrote in these pages about the French "a good Jew" Twitter hashtag that spawned a slew of anti-Semitic postings to the social media site. She hoped the French government kept up its ban on expressions of anti-Semitism, even if anonymous global websites make the regulations difficult to enforce. "Symbolically, it is crucial that they continue the clampdown, if only to drive home the point that those who resort to the anonymity of Twitter to be unoriginal jackasses are total cowards," she said.But a French Jewish group took the fight into their own hands, and took it straight to Twitter. The Associated Press reports:
A French Jewish group that threatened a lawsuit against Twitter says the social network has agreed to pull tweets under a pair of hash tags that spawned more than a week of racist and anti-Semitic posts.The group, the French Union of Jewish Students, held a conference call Thursday night with Twitter executives in California, the same day the social network blocked an account of a banned German neo-Nazi group at the behest of local authorities.
You might consider this a win-win. We've all witnessed their cowardice, and now these French anti-Semites have lost their platform, all through private decisions taken by a non-governmental group and a private company. (HT: Cassandra Vinograd)