Twenty-four hours flat, then the blockade. On the night of October 27 to 28, the Senate adopted the “break-the-payers” bill and the government amendment which allows the administration to demand the removal of online content without a judge. The withdrawal “within the hour” of calls for insurrection, which we detailed yesterday before the vote, no longer appears in this form in the adopted version.
The text, however, assumes a contact that Nostr or Bitchat users do not have: a host to whom to send the request.
Key Points
Vote acquired by 229 votes to 105, with the support of the RN.
The platforms will have one day to delete the calls for looting reported by Pharos.
A host who refuses risks a fine of 150,000 euros, up to 2% of its global turnover for a company.
The text goes to the National Assembly under accelerated procedure.
Withdrawal in 24 hours: what the Senate voted on social networks
Government amendment No. 94 was passed in its “rect.” version. bis", retouched at the request of the Law Commission, with a favorable opinion from both the commission and the government.
It expands the Pharos procedure, the reporting platform of the Ministry of the Interior. The administration could already demand the removal of terrorist, child-criminal or drug-related content without a judge. It will now be able to target direct provocations of violence, theft and damage, as soon as they risk creating a serious disturbance to public order.
The publisher or host will have 24 hours to execute. Otherwise, the administration may ask access providers to block the site and search engines to delist it, specifies the explanatory memorandum.
Refusal also becomes an offense. The recalcitrant host faces six months in prison and a fine of 150,000 euros, a rating increased to 2% of global turnover for a company.
The harshest part of the version submitted on Monday, a withdrawal in one hour for calls for insurrection or an attack, no longer appears in these terms in the voted version. According to AFP, it is the procedure “in less than twenty-four hours” that the left decried during the session.
Nostr and Bitchat facing the blocking of social networks
The whole mechanism relies on a recipient. Pharos writes to a publisher or host, then to access providers if nothing changes. TikTok and Instagram have headquarters, lawyers and turnover to protect.
Bitchat has none of that. Jack Dorsey's messaging, the first social network on the French App Store on October 23, relays messages from phone to phone via Bluetooth, without an account or central server.
When the Internet comes back, she switches to Nostr. On this decentralized protocol popular with bitcoiners, a publication is copied to several independent relays, often hosted outside France. Deleting the message from one relay leaves copies elsewhere intact.
Blocking by operators also has its limits. Their lawyers reminded Matignon on October 23: a simple VPN is enough to bypass it.
However, intermediaries have not disappeared. Apple and Google, which distribute Bitchat, are ready targets. India obtained the withdrawal of the application from the App Store on October 3, China in April. In France, the AMF can already block the sites of unauthorized crypto providers.
The breakers-pays law expected in the National Assembly
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez welcomed a “considerably enriched” text. It now has around twenty more provisions than the original five articles.
The rest plays out in the National Assembly, where no majority emerges. With the accelerated procedure, each chamber only has one reading before a possible joint committee.
The Constitutional Council is waiting at the end of the road. In 2020, he censored the withdrawal periods of one hour and 24 hours provided for by the Avia law against online hatred. The socialist deputy Arthur Delaporte already believes, to France Inter, that “the government is losing the meaning of a simple principle called freedom of expression”.
