PARIS: Twitter, a day after saying it blocked a neo-Nazi group's account in Germany in a global first, faced a new battle Friday in France where Jewish students are taking it to court to force it to remove anti-Semitic messages.
The UEJF Jewish students' union said it was filing a suit against the micro-blogging site to try to make it remove the offending tweets that have proliferated in recent days in France with the hashtag #unbonjuif.
The hashtag -- which in English means "a good Jew" -- has been one of the top trending words on French-language tweets and is often followed by offensive comments such as: "A good Jew can pump up your tyre with his nose."
"There is a fire that we have to put out. We want to put an end to this outpouring of hatred," the UEJF's lawyer StephaneLilti said.
On Thursday, Twitter said it had blocked a neo-Nazi group's account at the request of German police.
The move was the first time that the US firm had applied a policy known as "country-withheld content" which allows it to block an account at the request of state authorities.
In a move pitting censorship concerns against national laws on hate speech, Twitter said it had deployed the tool developed only this year to restrict content in a single country rather than simply delete posted comments. (AFP)
