Twitter has landed in hot waters again. This time it is in the Netherlands where a small Dutch town is furious over Twitter’s leniency in not removing content related to a supposed ring of satan-worshipping pedophiles.
Some miscreants were using Twitter to spread conspiracy theories about the abuse and murder of children, dating back to the 1980s. Bodegraven-Reeuwijk is a small town with an occupancy of 35,000 people.
The town is upset about the rampant rise in conspiracy theories and how it is affecting the population both in and around the town. All they want is to remove all the content related to satan-worshipping pedophiles and children’s murders.
Bodegraven-Reeuwijk’s Twitter Troubles
According to Reuters, the incident dates back to 2020, when three men started spreading misinformation about the satan worshiping cults that were active in the area. They tweeted about the mysterious deaths of children and posted content that disturbed the harmony of the town. While doing so, they also amassed cult followers who believed in everything they tweeted about the incident.
One of the three arrested individuals responsible for this whole Twitter menace claimed that he had lingering memories of the incident. He said that he had a recollection of childhood memories of witnessing a child abuse incident by a bunch of people in the town of Bodegraven.
Many believed him and even organized a march to the graveyard to honor the graves of the dead children. The graveyard was littered with flowers, and personal letters to the graves, which they assumed were of the children that died in the incident.
Bodegraven-Reeuwijk made requests to Twitter to remove all posts and tweets related to the incident but didn’t receive a response. So now the town and Twitter are to battle it out in court. However, the problem runs deeper.
This is a rather small-scale issue that Twitter could have handled on its own. The perpetrators are already in custody, and the town’s name could be easily cleared. However, the platform chose not to take action. If we look at earlier cases like the holocaust misinformation on Twitter and Facebook, this isn’t a very different graph from that situation.
It remains to be seen how Twitter handles this matter, and how it turns out in court. In the meantime, do let us know what you think about the issue in the comments.
