Social media site Twitter said it has released data to French authorities looking into the authors of a series of anti-Semitic tweets.
The move came after a French court in January ordered Twitter to release the user data following a lawsuit filed by the Union of Jewish students in France (UEJF).
A joint statement Friday from Twitter and the UEJF said the social media site has turned over to the Paris prosecutor's press and public liberties section "data that may enable the identification of certain users that the vice-prosecutor believes have violated French law."
It said the move "puts an end to the dispute" with the UEJF and that the two parties had "agreed to continue to work actively together in order to fight racism and anti-Semitism".
The statement also said the two sides agreed to "actively continue contributing together to the fight against racism and anti-Semitism, in keeping with their respective domestic laws and regulations." Those efforts will include "taking measures to improve the accessibility of the reporting procedure of illegal Tweets."
The EUJF had launched a civil suit against Twitter in March claiming 38.5 million euros ($50 million) in damages over the global networking site's failure to respond to the French court order. The group said it would hand over any damages won in court to the Shoah Memorial fund.
The union has been pressing Twitter to exercise tighter control following a deluge of anti-Semitic messages last year posted under the hashtags #unbonjuif (#a good jew) and #unjuifmort (a dead Jew).
UEJF President Jonathan Hayoun hailed Twitter’s decision as “a great victory” and “a big step in the fight against the notion of impunity on the internet. Twitter can no longer be a boulevard for racists and anti-Semites.”
He said his organization was withdrawing a $50 million lawsuit against San Francisco-based Twitter Inc., which was originally filed as a means to pressure the company to comply and "end Twitter's indifference."
"We got Twitter to respect the laws of our country," Jonathan Hayoun said in a telephone interview. Propagating racial and anti-Semitic hatred is against French law.