Danny Mekić and X back in court
image: Ravi Sharma via Unsplash
Two years ago, PhD candidate Danny Mekić took social media platform X to court because his account had become untraceable without explanation. The court ruled in his favour, but X is resisting: ‘Twitter doesn’t want to be transparent.’
The legal dispute started two years ago when Mekić published an opinion piece in Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant about new European legislation to tackle child abuse. According to the PhD candidate, the new legislation would enable mass surveillance. Mekić then posted about his article on X (formerly Twitter): ‘Shortly afterwards I heard from other twitterers that they couldn’t find me.’ It appeared that the platform had ‘shadow banned’ him. This means that a user can still see posts from other users, but their own posts and account become invisible or harder to find.
The PhD candidate received no explanation from X. He sees it as a matter of principle. So in 2023, Mekić took his case to court. The Court of Amsterdam ruled in his favour. X must, under a penalty payment of €4,000 give access to the way the platform processed his personal data. Two years on, the parties sit opposite each other again, because X wants to stop the penalty imposed. The platform does not want to provide the data, fearing ‘precedent setting’. Mekić: ‘Twitter doesn’t want to be transparent to all those other millions of users and is not honest about the rights they have and can exercise.’