We could see them accomplices during a very discreet weekend in one of their favorite French destinations, Honfleur. Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are equally united, but looked serious, to fight battles for France. On November 10, 2022, the President of the Republic thus launched a major project in Paris alongside his wife who is so involved in the subject of children: a “laboratory for the protection of children online”, bringing together a series of international actors. On this occasion, he called on the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, to ask him to join the initiative, adds AFP.
“@elonmusk, Will the bird protect our children?” (“Will the bird protect our children?“), tweeted the head of state in reference to the famous logo of the social network in the shape of a blue bird. “To all volunteers: join us!“, he also suggested on Twitter after the start of the initiative. This laboratory, which brings together platforms, NGOs and regulators, must respond to the growing exposure of minors to pornography, harassment and violence online. It was initiated during a meeting at the Elysée Palace with non-governmental organizations and representatives of major digital platforms and search engines (Meta, Microsoft, Google, TikTok…) to the occasion of the Paris Peace Forum.
Argentinian Presidents Alberto Fernandez and Estonian President Alar Karis also participated in the launch of this initiative. “The digital space cannot be a place of lawlessness. It is the fight that we have led against terrorism, that we are leading against online hate speech. This is what we must pursue in terms of protecting our children.“, said Emmanuel Macron at the start of the round table.
This laboratory must identify the “bong ways to regulate and better protect our children online“, underlined the Head of State, alongside his wife Brigitte, also mobilized on the subject. “Protecting our children online means better verifying the age of users, better detecting and stopping sexual predators, better detecting and responding to harassment, being more effective in removing content“, he detailed on Twitter. In particular, we will have to see how to act “quickly and in a coordinated waye between multiple digital platforms to remove child pornography or intimate content that has been disseminated without the consent of minors and their families.e”, he insisted during the meeting.
Countering Violent Extremism Online
This initiative is modeled on the Christchurch Appeal against online violent extremism, launched by New Zealand and France after the 2019 killings that left 51 dead in two mosques in this New Zealand locality, recalls the AFP. The images taken by the author of the massacre were then available online for several hours. The call helped reform the Global Internet Forum Against Terrorism (GIFCT), to speed up the removal of images in a crisis.