Case closed.
Four years after the revelations on the Facebook group the "League of LOL", the investigation into suspicions of cyberbullying has been dismissed, said a source familiar with the matter.
This decision, taken for "insufficiently characterized offense", dates back to February 2022, confirms the Paris prosecutor's office.
This file which had caused a scandal in the profession at the beginning of 2019, but also dismissals then at least two decisions of the prud'hommes for the benefit of the defendants.
The case dates back to the end of 2019. After an investigation by the Checknews de Liberation site, many Internet users had accused several members of this group, mainly journalists and communicators, and other outsiders, of having harassed them on the Internet in the 2010s, or of having, through their public criticisms, launched digital "packs" against them, resulting in the dismissal of some of the troublemakers.
Faced with the outcry caused by the case, some of the respondents quickly published apologies, which they considered rushed or exaggerated after the fact.
Quickly, SOS Racisme had taken legal action, imitated a few weeks later by the association Prenons la une, which campaigns for gender equality in the newsrooms.
An audition in 2021
The Paris prosecutor's office had opened an investigation in March 2019, entrusted to the Brigade for the repression of local delinquency (BRDP).
According to a source familiar with the matter, the case culminated in the hearing by the police in the summer of 2021, under the status of free suspect, of a defendant, targeted by a double complaint for tweets from the end of the 2010s. The person concerned, a member of the disputed group “for barely three months in 2010”, did not wish to comment.
Two other potential suspects were identified during the investigation but the facts concerning them were prescribed, said the source familiar with the matter.
Other people who consider themselves victims of this cyberbullying had given up complaints for fear of online reprisals, said a source familiar with the matter.
Read also“I did not harass anyone with my own tweets”, defends Vincent Glad
These accusations had led to the dismissal of some people accused of harassment.
Since then, Liberation and Les Inrocks have been condemned by the Paris industrial tribunal for the dismissal of two of their journalists.
The daily appealed.
“This devastating event ruined dozens of lives”
Alexandre Hervaud, another dismissed Liberation journalist, had been dismissed by the industrial tribunal.
He appealed.
“This information is not a surprise and shows that after a long investigation of three years, the media story of a harassing group did not hold”, reacted the person concerned.
“This devastating event ruined dozens of lives with layoffs, suicide attempts and depression.
These people still suffer from it today,” he said.
Beyond the specific case, the affair had provoked an important debate on sexism in the journalistic world.