Internet & Online Safety · New Caledonia
Online safety & content laws in New Caledonia (2026)
New Caledonia shaded by its internet & online safety status
New Caledonia is a French sui generis overseas collectivity and an EU Overseas Country and Territory, so the EU DSA does not apply automatically; instead France's comprehensive digital regime (SREN law and LCEN) plus selected DSA provisions were expressly extended and adapted to the territory by Ordonnance n° 2024-1019 of 13 November 2024, since regulation of online communications is a competence retained by the French State. The framework covers platform liability for illegal content, mandatory age verification for adult sites, sanctions against cyber-harassment, and defence against foreign disinformation. New Caledonia also saw France's first national social-media shutdown, a two-week TikTok block during the May 2024 unrest, which the Conseil d'État ultimately ruled unlawful on 1 April 2025.
Key points
Ordonnance n° 2024-1019 of 13 November 2024 extended and adapted the SREN law (Loi n° 2024-449) and parts of the EU DSA to New Caledonia, using the habilitation in SREN article 63; the DSA had to be expressly extended because New Caledonia is an OCT outside EU territory and the regulation falls under State competence.
The extended SREN rules impose a mandatory age-verification system for access to pornographic sites, with ARCOM empowered to order the blocking of non-compliant adult sites to protect minors.
Platform responsibility for illegal content rests on the long-standing LCEN regime (notice-and-takedown, hosting-provider liability) reinforced by SREN measures for faster takedown, sanctions, and temporary account bans for users convicted of online hate speech, enforced by ARCOM.
The adapted text strengthens penalties against cyber-harassment and gives regulators tools to act against disinformation spread by foreign audiovisual media subject to EU sanctions.
On 14 May 2024, amid violent unrest over voting reforms, the French government blocked TikTok across New Caledonia for roughly two weeks (until 29 May) under 1955 state-of-emergency powers — France's first national social-media shutdown.
After initially refusing to suspend the block for lack of urgency (23 May 2024), the Conseil d'État annulled the Prime Minister's 14 May 2024 decision on 1 April 2025 (n° 494511), finding it failed the strict conditions of the 'exceptional circumstances' doctrine.
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