When Facebook "Invite" Each Internet User to Act Against COVID-19 by Redirecting Him or Her Towards Public Information Center, Is It by Legal Obligation (Compliance) or by Corporate Social Responsibility? With Which Consequences?

I- FIRST HYPOTHESIS : SPONTANEOUS ACTION FROM FACEBOOK, BECOMING EDITOR

Two elements encourage to think like that, but the impossible neutrality of a message may lead a judge to requalify such an emission.

1. Facebook : a firm acting through « Corporate Social Responsibility »

Within the health crisis which shakes the whole planet!footnote-1772, many firms act outside of their social object, even renewed by the « raison d'être », give goods, reconvert activities, affirm their solidarity.

We can consider that Facebook did the same. Not having physicial good's manufacturing activity but having the power to contact a lot of people, this very particular firm put at the service of the community its work tool by relaying practical informations, like others made health products.

The analogy is very convincing because masks, hydroalcoholic gel and practical advices are at the same level to fight against the virus' spread. Information stops the spread as the disinfection does.

2. A message which wants to be « neutral »

The message in question is divided in two parts. The first part ask to the internet user to act against virus' spread. This is neutral because we can consider that the firm, not only cannot issue the inverse speech, that comes under Criminal Law!footnote-1773, but also because it relays the whole speech of everybody. The second part of the message just redirects towards public sources : « find news, etc..., advices... and resources », the whole redirecting towards the Public Center which gather all of this. So, Facebook transfers information like others transport drugs!footnote-1774.

It results from this two first elements that Facebook has acted to help, that it was not constraint to do it and that no legal consequence is attached to it.

3. The impossibility of a neutral message and the perspective of a global requalification in « editor »

The difficulty comes from the fact that here, the emission of a « neutral message » is not possible!footnote-1776. To have a better idea, we can compare this message to other messages sent by Facebook according to the same technique. 

For example, the message sent by Facebook at Christmas or for the 14th of July (French National Day). They are messages that wish to everybody a « merry christmas » or a « merry 14th of July ». They may be push us to celebrate these events but these messages are different because they do not take the imperative form : we do not read « celebrate » like we read « act » here.

This corresponds to the fact that celebrating these moments are not an obligation, even a moral one, for the internet user, while do not spreading a virus is an obligation.

We can also bring face to face the current message to the one sent by Facebook to ask the internet users to vote at the elections. This kind of message is more ambiguous because it include an advice about a behavior : « go to vote ». But the vote, if it is not compulsory, is a civic duty and we can still consider that Facebook act in the continuation of the State.

Here, the absence of neutrality comes from the second part of the message. It is not reproachable because it is not avoidable. Facebook describes the information to search, and more precisely about the way to act, for itself and for its entourage (what about the others?). While many messages proliferate to criticize « official discourses » about this information and assume sometimes the reverse, in information and advices.

If Facebook acted spontaneously, it chose. This is not reproachable. But, then, it acted as everyone by sending this post. Therefore, Facebook, in a non neutral way, did not « brought » a message from others but, by making its choice freely, it « wrote » a message. As we already did it for the elections, in order to that we vote because it prefers that we vote rather than the contrary. As it does it now again, in order to that we fight against the virus according to methods that seems to it more reliable than others. While so much are proposed!footnote-1777. The consequence is well than Facebook is an editor.

If Facebook does not want this qualification, and we know all the energy deployed by this category of firms to put away this qualification and its consequences!footnote-1778, it is therefore in the Compliance Law that it is necessary to search the salient qualification.

II- SECOND HYPOTHESIS, PREVAILING : ACTION OF THE CRUCIAL OPERATOR BECAUSE OF ITS OBLIGATION TO FIGHT AGAINST FAKE NEWS

In Compliance Law, Facebook is, like others, a crucial digital operator!footnote-1779. Because of that, Law constraint them to fight against fake speeches!footnote-1780. But, if the necessity for everyone to fight against the virus is not contested, the methods are subjects to strong controversies, which are tolerable and even desirable in a scientific perspective, but also to dangerous speeches, even full of hate and probably fake.

It is so in response to the order of Law that the crucial operator must fight. In this perspective, the fight is not only negative, it is also positive. Compliance Law deploys these two perspectives!footnote-1781, as the definition of « monumental goal »!footnote-1782 shows, cornerstone of Compliance Law!footnote-1783.

1. Facebook is a « crucial digital operator » subejected to Compliance Law

Compliance Law forces operators which are in position to concretize « monumental goals ». These « monumental goals » are set by public Authorities. Their concretization is internalized within operators which are in good position to reach them (« crucial operators »), according to methods that they can choose.

Concerning digital world, firms which hold platforms are of this category. It is the reason why they participate in the Governance of Internet, without being the master of it : they developed the means without setting the goals!footnote-1784.

2. Crucial digital operators are « invited » to participate in the fight against fake news

Since this general definition, Law forces firms called « platforms » to fight in Ex Ante against « fake news ». This was the purpose of precise texts, concerning especially electoral periods. But in a general way, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (French), which operates then as supervisory Authority, « recommended » a more general attention on this question.

We are close from banking « invitation » and from « vigilance » organized in terms of corruption.

It results that the operator which develops tools in Ex Ante to fight against fake news obey to Law and not to its heart. Or not only. It results from this that if a damage happens, the obedience to Law forces it but also protect it, especially if the information was not so fake, remained contested, etc.

However, concerning the virus, necessarily fake messages are diffused on Facebook (« drink garlic water protect you », etc). The power of Internet is such that face to this massive diffusion of these advices, yet unable, World Health Organization and governements themselves have had to intervene to ask to the population to not follow them. It is the reason why, since the beginning of the crisis, Facebook, like Twitter, has withdrawn grossly inexact information concerning virus!footnote-1790. A lot of full of hate messages are developping too (« these chineses deserve to die », « if it could kill all the scum », etc).

But, Compliance Law produced special texts, internalizing in crucial digital operators the fight against disinformation as well as the fight against full of hate speeches. In France, their effectivity is especially entrusted to the Audiovisual Superior Council. Eliminating them comes under, for digital operators, the application of Compliance Law and not of their spontaneous action!footnote-1789. 

Besides, the specificity of the message sent by Facebook comes from the fact that the « monumental goal » is here not only to fight against disinformation but also to promote exact information. As the Autorité des marchés financiers (French) does it on the financial markets.

In the extent where Compliance Law, continuation of Regulation Law, institutes crucial operators in « second degree regulators »!footnote-1785, this is perfectly conceivable.

Compliance Law permits so this passage. Under certain conditions.

3. The conditions of the passage from the negative obligation of fighting against fake news to a positive obligation to redirect towards informations presumed reliable

We should not only authorize but also « invite » the crucial operator to realize such a passage. Especially when are concerning, like here vital information, human beings, since Compliance Law put at its center the human being. To take back the committment express by Facebook on 23 of March, it is necessary to pass from "stop misinformation and harmful content" to the organization of  the "access to accurate information".

Come back then the recurring grievance excluding such a behavior : platforms do not have to impose their « truth ». Besides, the consequence of such a behavior should be their ulterior liability if some elements reveals to be fake. Except if we ask the legal question to know if by warning others by altruism!footnote-1786, those firms can pretend to the statute of « whistle blowers »!footnote-1787, evading like that to the « right/wrong » cuple!footnote-1775.

This is here that the State intervenes. Because Compliance Law, as a continuation of Regulation Law, always remains anchored in public authorities.

Indeed, the crucial operator must redirect towards information emanating from public authorities, in our case from an official website. If it appears, afterwards, that this information was inacurate, the operator does not engage its liability because with regards to it, this kind of sender generates a presumption of truth, which must be overturned only by the demonstration of a heavy mistake from the operator.

This essential probationary rule permits to clarify what Facebook just did, in application of a Compliance Law which is, more than ever, required to prevent and manage the major systemic crisis, like those whose the world population is currently living.