Dutch Town Sues Twitter Over Satanic Conspiracy Theories

A Dutch town took Twitter to court on Friday in an effort to force the social media company to remove conspiracy theories about a ring of Satan-worshipping paedophiles supposedly active in the town in the 1980s.

At the hearing at The Hague District Court Twitter called the town’s demands “outrageous” and said complying would be a threat to free speech.

The town of Bodegraven-Reeuwijk, with about 35,000 inhabitants, was the subject of conspiracy theories starting in 2020 when three men began spreading unfounded stories in which they said children were murdered there in the 1980s.

The main propagator of the unfounded stories said he had memories of witnessing the abuse by people in Bodegraven.

Conspiracy theories

Dozens of people who had followed the men’s messages online came to Bodegraven to lay flowers and written messages at the graves of seemingly random dead children who they claimed were victims of the satanic group.

Last year the Hague court ordered the three men to immediately remove all online content related to the stories and make sure it would not re-emerge.

But others have continued to echo the content, leading to the legal action.

Bodegraven’s lawyer Cees van de Zanden told local media that in July the town had requested Twitter to actively find and remove content related to the stories but had not received a reply.

Twitter has deleted the accounts of the three men involved, who are currently all in jail on unrelated convictions.

‘Laxity’

The city’s legal team told the court on Friday that Twitter’s attitude was “characterised by laxity” and that it made “buckets full of money” by leaving such material online.

“People who have moved out of the village don’t dare to return yet,” the city’s lawyer told the court, according to local media reports.

Twitter’s lawyer responded that the material involved had been removed “promptly” and that monitoring the service for content related to the stories would be an “excessive obligation” that would endanger freedom of expression.

The judge’s ruling is expected on 4 October.