A social media campaign from the French authorities has been blocked with the aid of Twitter – due to the government’s very own anti-faux-news law. Since December, France calls for online political campaigns to declare who paid for them and what changed into spending. But now, Twitter has rejected a government voter registration marketing campaign. The organization could not discover a strategy to obey the letter of the brand new law, officers stated – and opted to keep away from the ability hassle altogether.
The #OuiJeVote (Yes, I Vote) campaign advocated for voters to check in for the European elections beforehand of the deadline. It turned into operated by the French government records service, which had planned to pay for promoted tweets, consistent with information agency AFP. Twitter’s refusal to take money from the state to sell the message baffled many in France. One MP, Naïma Moutchou, tweeted: “I concept it becomes an April Fools!”
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner additionally took to the platform to express frustration with the selection. “Twitter’s priority ought to be to combat content material that glorifies terrorism. Not no campaigns to check-in at the electoral lists of a democratic republic. The government information carrier informed AFP information employer: “Twitter does no longer know the way to try this these days, and so decided to have a difficult-line coverage, which is to reduce any so-referred to as political marketing campaign.”
But it argued that the general public statistics message, actually asking humans to sign up to vote, have to no longer depend on as a “political campaign.” “It’s not that the regulation has backfired towards us; it is a platform which does now not comply,” it stated. “In our opinion, this is an ultimate stand on their part to position the discussion again on the table, to change the measures.” Twitter’s suggestions on European political content material state that political campaign advertisers must go through a particular certification system. Issue advocacy commercials are not supporting or concentrated on individual people, or parties usually are allowed without restriction.
