[Comments] French Court Waxes Wacko Over Yahoo Auction Sites

Monday, November 20, 2000

Well, it's like this: certain Yahoo auction sites offer buyers Nazi memorabilia such as flags and SS daggers. French anti-racism groups have convinced a French court to order Yahoo to find a way to prevent French Web surfers from accessing these sites. Uh-oh...

This could turn out to be the biggest threat yet to the relatively open Internet we all enjoy. As of now, what the French court is demanding appears to be technologically impossible except in limited ways. This Associated Press story points out that " the case could set a legal precedent regarding the right of one country to reach across borders and impose its own laws on online material that is stored in other nations."

The French, God bless 'em, have always thought differently. And we have no reason whatsoever to disparage the honest efforts of groups like the "Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples" to fight against prejudice and hatred. But current French law, which makes it illegal to "sell or display anything that incites racism," is so broadly written that any number of enterprises could be attacked. Earlier this year another French court fined Yahoo twice under the same law for offending the nation's "collective memory." We note that the fines in this instance were only $1,000 each, which may say something about the judge's own historical perspective.

In fact, during World War II in occupied France, a number of French citizens helped send thousands of French Jews to Nazi concentration camps where most perished. If being reminded of this offends any French readers, we're sorry, but the truth is inescapable and may go some way toward explaining why current French law seeks to redress the imbalance in the national karma, so to speak. Nazi war memorabilia may be banned precisely because it awakens the "collective memory" of a period older French citizens would rather forget.

[This editor is certainly not presuming any moral superiority for Americans on this issue, either, since our government knew full well what was happening in Nazi-occupied territory in the years leading up to the war and did little to suppress it, the Nazis being regarded as a bulwark against Soviet expansion. But we are very concerned about the possible effect of the French court's ruling on Internet freedom and urge the French not to be afraid of a few swastikas. And in anticipation of the email we're sure to get from France, we want to go on the record as being very grateful for the heroic efforts of many more truly compassionate and brave French citizens who fiercely resisted the Nazi occupation and helped save the lives of large numbers of Jews and downed Allied airmen. Vive la France, but hands off the Internet, please! -- JHF]