Why Twitter blocked this French government campaign

In what appears to be a case of scoring a self-goal, a French government ad campaign intended to encourage voting in the upcoming European Parliament elections has been blocked by Twitter for fear of violating France's new fake news law, the media reported.

According to the new law which is in force since December, France requires online political campaigns to declare the billing information - who paid for them, and how much was spent, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

The French government's information service (GIS) wanted to promote the campaign "#Ouijevote" (#YesI'mvoting) on Twitter.

But the microblogging site rejected the campaign after determining it to be a political campaign.

Twitter's decision to block the voter registration campaign baffled many.

"Twitter's priority should be to fight content that glorifies terrorism. Not campaigns to register on the electoral lists of a democratic republic," France's Interior Minister Christophe Castanter was quoted as saying in a tweet.

Other users in the platform are also finding the decision hilarious.

"In #France, @TwitterFrance has decided to block a goverment sponsored campaign to promote voting in europeans elections... by invoking a recent french law against #fakenews.

#Ouijevote," wrote one user.

--IANS

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