Dutch city sues Twitter over 'satan-worshipping paedophile' conspiracy theories | World News

A small Dutch city took Twitter to court docket on Friday to demand the social media large takes down all messages regarding a supposed ring of satan-worshipping paedophiles that have been alleged to have been energetic within the city within the Nineteen Eighties.

Bodegraven-Reeuwijk, a city of round 35,000 inhabitants in the midst of the Netherlands, has been the main target of conspiracy theories on social media since 2020, when three males began spreading unfounded tales concerning the abuse and homicide of kids they mentioned happened within the city within the Nineteen Eighties.

The primary instigator of the tales mentioned he had childhood recollections of witnessing the abuse by a bunch of individuals in Bodegraven.

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The tales precipitated a lot unrest in Bodegraven, as scores of followers of the lads's tweets flocked to the native graveyard to put flowers and written messages on the graves of seemingly random useless youngsters, who they claimed have been victims of the satanic ring.

Twitter's lawyer Jens van den Brink declined to remark earlier than the listening to at The Hague District Courtroom on Friday.

Final 12 months the identical court docket ordered the lads to right away take away all their tweets, threats and different on-line content material regarding the story and to be sure that none of it may ever emerge once more.

However regardless of their conviction, tales about Bodegraven nonetheless flow into on social media as others have continued to echo their story, main the city to take the matter up with Twitter itself.

"If conspiracy theorists do not take away their messages, then the platforms concerned must act," the city of Bodegraven's lawyer Cees van de Zanden was quoted as saying by Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant on Friday.

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Van de Zanden mentioned that in July the city requested Twitter to actively discover and take away all messages regarding the Bodegraven story, not solely these posted by the three convicted males, however had to date not obtained a solution from the U.S. firm.

The boys behind the Bodegraven story are at the moment all in jail, as they've been convicted in different court docket circumstances for incitement and making loss of life threats to a variety of individuals together with Prime Minister Mark Rutte and former well being minister Hugo de Jonge.