PARIS — The French Parliament will start debating a bill on online hate speech and harassment on Wednesday, as countries around the world grapple with the question of what content is acceptable online and how to regulate huge technological platforms with a global reach.

In France, laws regulating free speech are generally more restrictive than in the United States, and rules against violence or hate speech already exist.

But the authorities say that the law needs to catch up with tech platforms. In an op-ed published this month in the newspaper Le Monde, a group of government ministers said that while social networks had created a “new horizon for socializing and exchanging,” they had also shown humanity’s “darkest sides.”

Here is what you need to know about the proposal.

Why is France debating this bill?

President Emmanuel Macron announced the bill in February at a meeting of an umbrella group of Jewish organizations. Mr. Macron, who was addressing the group amid a resurgence of anti-Semitism around Europe, said that there was a need for “incisive, concrete” acts against all kinds of hate speech.