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France has announced plans to sanction social networks like Twitter and Facebook for hosting extremist messages and group pages.

The government has said it will produce a draft law next month that will make Internet companies hate-speech "accomplices" if they fail to block extremist groups.

“The big operators, and we know who they are, can no longer close their eyes if they are considered accomplices of what they host,” said president Francois Hollande.

“We must act at the European and international level to define a legal framework so that Internet platforms which manage social media be considered responsible, and that sanctions can be taken.”

The draft law comes as a response to the terrorist attacks on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this month in which 12 people were shot and killed.

French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve will travel to the US in order to meet with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google.

GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan said internet firms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter were 'in denial' over the role their networks played in terrorism and said they should open themselves up more to intelligence services.

Mr Hannigan said: "GCHQ and its sister agencies, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector, including the largest US technology companies which dominate the web.

"However much they may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us.

For his part, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been vocal in defending free speech following the attack on Charlie Hebdo.

“As long as we are connected, then no attacks by extremists – not in Nigeria, not in Pakistan, not in the Middle East and not in France – can stand in the way of history’s arc towards freedom and acceptance for all,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post following the attacks.

And yet the massive social network bowed to pressure from Turkey yesterday to block users' access to content the government deemed offensive.

It's not a stretch to assume that social networks will agree to work with the French government rather than receive sanctions as "accomplices" for hate-speech.

"As the internet has become more and more important to our lives, governments have sought to exert greater control - and with good reason: ISIS online is a clear sign of how troubling and damaging the Internet can be outside of the effective reach of law," believes Carl Miller, a research director and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media.

Given that Facebook, Twitter and other social networks are companies beholden to the laws of the countries they operate in, it's likely we'll see a crackdown on extremism on their sites sooner rather than later.