This is the most surprising story of the day, although conspiracies on the Internet relentlessly offer us their share of astonishing information. In the Netherlands, the municipality of Bodegraven-Reeuwijk filed a complaint against Twitter last September, asking for the removal of all tweets associating this town of 35,000 inhabitants with “paedo-satanic” crimes.
The story, which has everything of an urban legend, has not only spread on the microblogging network, but also on other social networks. It would seem that the rumor started from three men in January 2021, one of whom recounted having witnessed satanic rituals and having witnessed the murders of young children in Bodegraven-Reeuwijk, around thirty years ago. Obviously, the information was shared and believed by dozens of people, who even called for the graves of the supposed victims to be planted with flowers.
In response to the case, Twitter permanently suspended the account of the main defendant, known as “Micha Kat”. A worn-out figure of Dutch conspiracy, the individual also accused several personalities of having been part of this “pedophile network”. He is currently incarcerated, according to Dutch media. But, for the municipality, the measures taken by Twitter are not enough. That’s why she took the social network to court to demand the removal of all tweets associating the rumor with the city.
And justice went logically in the direction of Twitter. “Not everything is illegal, and a good filter can’t be put in place in this case, according to Twitter”, explained the court, dismissing Bodegraven-Reeuwijk. Justice also considers that the platform “cannot be obliged to remove all posts in which the term Bodegraven is associated with child abuse on its own initiative and therefore without a request from the municipality”. She invites the city to follow the usual procedure: report tweets deemed offensive. Twitter will then take care of deciding whether or not they should be deleted.