FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) is pleased to welcome Mr Marc Knobel as a new member of our International Advisory Board (IAB). The IAB is made up of international experts who support OHPI’s work by providing advice to the OHPI staff and Board of Directors. The AIB is chaired by Dr Colin Campbell from Law Faculty at Monash University.

Marc Knobel is President of J’accuse, a French association fighting against racism and anti-Semitism on the Internet, and a researcher at the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF). He was formerly a researcher at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Vice President of the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA), and a member of the Observatory of Antisemitism.

A specialist in extremism on the Internet, Marc Knobel has advised the Council of Europe, the French Parliament, and the United Nations. Since 2004 he has been a rapporteur for the Consultative Commission on Human Rights (Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l’Homme).

In 2000 Mac Knobel initiated successful legal proceedings against Yahoo! in what became the seminal case of LICRA v Yahoo! The case involved the sale of Nazi and neo-Nazi memorabilia through the Yahoo! auction site. The material was sold in France despite laws prohibiting the sale of such material. The case established that the French courts would impose penalties on foreign corporations who violated the laws of France, rejecting the argument from Yahoo! that content on the Internet, even when seen from France, was outside the court’s jurisdiction.

The case continues to be felt today with prosecutors and courts around the world holding social media companies accountable for failures to comply with local laws, and governments increasingly engaging with online problems which impact their citizens.

We welcome Mac Knobel to the International Advisory Board and look forward to benefiting from his experience and ideas as we work to make the internet a safer place for all.