Court orders Facebook to reveal who accused Dutchman of transgressive behavior

The court in The Hague ordered Facebook owner Meta to reveal the identity of an anonymous Facebook user who accused a Dutchman of transgressive behavior on the platform, NU.nl reports.

In various Facebook groups about dating, the anonymous person accused the Dutchman of using women and then dumping them, being a pathological liar, and secretly recording women. The accusations were accompanied by photos of the man.

The man doesn’t know who is behind the account. According to him, the allegations are untrue and intimidating and caused a lot of damage. He asked the court to order Meta to delete the posts and reveal who posted them.

The court ruled that Meta only has to delete the posts if they have proven to be false and unjustified, which it can’t do without more information. So the posts can stay online for the time being. But it did order Metal to reveal the poster's identity to the man. According to the court, the man’s interests in addressing the allegations outweigh those of the anonymous Facebook user and Facebook itself.

Meta must share the username, email address, and telephone number linked to the account. Every day that the tech company fails to do so, it must pay a penalty of 1,000 euros. That amount can climb to a maximum of 100,000 euros.