French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has placed a ban on five websites that he believes are promoting ISIS and terrorism in general.
The banned sites include islamic-news.info and the al-Hayat Media Center. When asked why such a ban was necessary, Cazeneuve told AFP "I do not want to see sites that could lead people to take up arms on the Internet."
However, Cazeneuve wants to make sure citizens understand how he makes "a distinction between freedom of expression and the spread of messages that serve to glorify terrorism. These hate messages are a crime."
The ban would require all local Internet service providers to block all listed websites by the end of a 24-hour period.
This is a rather peculiar move, considering that it seems to directly attack the site's host, rather than going to the site's owner and asking them to change or remove the content. The owner of islamic-news.info has no affiliation to ISIS or other terrorist groups.
"[The owner] has written a public statement posted on the French news site Numerama, in which he makes it clear that he's a one-man operation, and that he's been doing everything based on a 50 euro/month hosting plan, and that he doesn't support ISIS or Al Qaeda at all," reports Techdirt.
France isn't done yet, though. There are reportedly other sites that the country plans to take down in the near future. The government is also discussing placing a ban on web hosts who provide hosting for the alleged terrorism sites.
All of this comes after France announced its plans to "hold the Internet accountable for terrorism". This focus on Internet companies is only one part of the country's new countermeasure program. The French government also took the passports of six citizens it suspected to be involved with ISIS for a six-month period, and plans to do the same for other citizens in the near future.
