Twitter Involved In Another Problem, Bodegraven Residents Sue To Delete Disturbing Conspiracy Stories

Bodegraven residents sued Twitter. (photo: twitter @gem_BR)

JAKARTA - A small Dutch town sued Twitter in court on Friday, September 16, to demand the social media giant remove all messages related to a satanic pedophile network that is thought to have been active in the city in the 1980s.

Bodegraven-Reeuwijk, is a city of about 35,000 inhabitants in the center of the Netherlands. This small town has been the focus of conspiracy theories on social media since 2020, when three men began spreading unsubstantiated stories about child abuse and murder they said took place in the city in the 1980s.

The story's main instigator said he had childhood memories of witnessing abuse by a group of people in Bodegraven.

The stories caused much unrest in Bodegraven, as a number of followers of the man's tweet flocked to local cemeteries to lay flowers and write messages on the graves of apparently randomly dead children, whom they claimed were victims of a satanic ring.

Twitter's attorney, Jens van den Brink, declined to comment before a hearing in The Hague District Court next Friday.

Last year the same court ordered the men to immediately delete all tweets, threats and other online content related to the story and to ensure that nothing else could appear again.

But despite their beliefs, stories about Bodegraven are still circulating on social media as others continue to tell their stories, create the city and raise the issue with Twitter itself.

"If conspiracy theorists don't erase their message, then the platforms involved need to act," Bodegraven city attorney Cees van de Zanden was quoted as saying by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant on Friday, September 16.

Van de Zanden said that in July the city had also asked Twitter to actively find and delete all messages related to Bodegraven's story, not just those posted by the three convicted men. But they have so far received no response from the US company.

The people behind Bodegraven's story are all currently in prison, as they have been convicted in other court cases of sedition and making death threats to a number of people including Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and former health minister Hugo de Jonge.