A Paris court finds 10 people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron
Constitutional questions test judicial philosophy as Americans debate the role of unelected judges.
The way much of the coverage frames this Paris verdict, as a tidy win against “misinformation,” skips over a harder question: what happens when courts become the referee for speech that is crude, offensive, and clearly wrong, but still political in effect? Yes, spreading false claims about someone’s sex is ugly. But criminal convictions for online talk, even vile talk, invite selective enforcement and a chilling fog over legitimate dissent.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
A Paris court has found 10 people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron by spreading false online claims about her gender and sexuality. They included allegations she was born a male.
One defendant was sentenced to six months
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
The way much of the coverage frames this Paris verdict, as a tidy win against “misinformation,” skips over a harder question: what happens when courts become the referee for speech that is crude, offensive, and clearly wrong, but still political in effect?
Yes, spreading false claims about someone’s sex is ugly. But criminal convictions for online talk, even vile talk, invite selective enforcement and a chilling fog over legitimate dissent. Conservatives are right to worry about state power over speech, especially in countries where elites already wield institutional protection that ordinary citizens rarely enjoy.
A healthy society relies on rule of law that is predictable and narrow, not elastic enough to punish bad ideas as crimes. If public figures want public trust, they should lean on transparency and counterspeech, not a precedent that expands government-backed censorship.
The principle at stake is simple: public trust is strengthened when truth wins in open debate, not when prosecutors decide what must be said.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.