Moselle. Member of Parliament Isabelle Rauch, victim of a digital raid, files a complaint

Insults, threats and harassment. This is what pushed, just before the Easter weekend, the deputy of the 9e district of Moselle, Isabelle Rauch (LREM), to file a complaint with the public prosecutor of Thionville, for having been the victim of a digital raid on social networks.

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Parents of anti-mask students …

It all started on March 12 on Facebook. The elected Moselle relay on the social network the visit she made, earlier in the morning, in a nursery school of the department during saliva tests on students.

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… to the conspiratorial V_V activists

Stunned by the surge, the elected takes her keyboard and publishes a new post on March 22, calling for “moderation in the public debate”. She warns that “a complaint will be brought against any offensive or defamatory comments.” For his part, Vincent S. then tries to extinguish the fire, calling for more courtesy.

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Too late: Pandora’s box is open, Vincent S.’s publications have caught the attention of V_V. Originally from Italy, this movement made up of Internet users convinced that politicians are seeking to impose a dictatorship in favor of the Covid, is spreading in France. Acting together, coordinating via Telegram messaging in support of digital raids, they “rot” the Facebook publications of their target. Isabelle Rauch pays the price: in less than two hours, in the midst of indignant parents or convinced anti-tests, more than 300 comments! All written in capital letters, by different profiles but bearing a similar photo – a red double V – they accuse, against a background of conspiracy, politicians, media or communities.

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The Paris prosecutor’s office seized

If Isabelle Rauch considers freedom of expression as “fundamental”, she considers that calling “to spit on a person, inciting to a passage to the act” is not part of it and that “it is reprehensible”. Aware that she has “not been threatened with death”, she judges however that it is these “diffuse comments, coming from many people questioning her probity” and “a whole atmosphere” which “push her to lodge a complaint” . In two times. A complaint against the entire V_V collective. Another against the profiles having uttered insulting remarks and called to attack his physical integrity, with screenshots as proof.

The case has just been entrusted to the Paris prosecutor’s office, which has had a new national center for the fight against online hatred since January.

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