NVinNYC

Regarding the French ban on citizen journalism filming violence that I wrote about earlier:

The law aims at fighting “happy slapping” only (filming orchestrated violence and sharing the images on the web, the intention being to harm the victim) […]

Unfortunately the link to that quote (via Daring Fireball.) seems to be down but here is the Google Cache.

The original article mentioned “happy slapping” in this paragraph:

The law [...] is intended to clamp down on a wide range of public order offenses. During parliamentary debate of the law, government representatives said the offense of filming or distributing films of acts of violence targets the practice of “happy slapping,” in which a violent attack is filmed by an accomplice, typically with a camera phone, for the amusement of the attacker’s friends.

However, in the following paragraph, the article also cites Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi, expressing concern that the law “will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.” The comments on the above linked Google Cache also expressed concern about the scope of the law.

Situation: Unclear.

PS: Isn’t this legislation to combat people filming “happy slapping” akin to using a chain-saw as a fly swatter? Can’t they prosecute the ‘slappers’ for assault?