Two weeks prior to the French presidential election, President Emanuel Macron reopened the debate on ending online anonymity. The president is open to the idea of dismantling foreign platforms if they do not require users to verify their identity before
they can post. Macron told Le Point last week: In a democratic society, there should be no anonymity. You can't walk around in the street wearing a hood. On the Internet, people allow themselves, because they are hooded
behind a pseudonym, to say the worst abjections.
Macron began his campaign against online anonymity in January 2019, saying it was time to move towards a gradual lifting of all forms of anonymity. In the latest interview,
Macron attacked US Big Tech platforms, claiming: They come to use our ancient or post-revolutionary freedoms to divert from their essence. We need to create a public order, like in the street.
This is not the state of nature. On social media networks, you can kill reputations, spread false news, drive people to suicide.
Macron hopes that the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act will be a solution to the problem of
online anonymity and Big Tech antitrust practices. |