“A First Victory Against Big Tech!” – Belgian Lawmaker Awarded €27k From Meta For Unfair Facebook ‘Shadowban’

 Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been ordered to pay damages in the sum of €27,000 to a Belgian right-wing lawmaker for unfairly limiting his reach on the social media platform, otherwise known as “shadowbanning.”

The Antwerp Court of Appeal ruled on Monday in favor of Tom Vandendriessche, an MEP standing for reelection as the lead candidate for the Flemish separatist party, Vlaams Belang, in Belgium.

The court held that Facebook had unfairly censored Vandendriessche’s account, which currently boasts 234,000 followers, back in February 2021 and had failed to act “in accordance with the principle of good faith” and did not offer “sufficient procedural guarantees” for users who were subjected to such measures. His account was subsequently blocked in May of the same year.

Meta claimed it had acted in accordance with its community guidelines and accused the Belgian lawmaker of posting inappropriate content on the platform, leading to the shadowban. However, Vandendriessche was informed by the social media giant the ban had been lifted at the end of 2021, a claim he contested, as his organic reach remained artificially low.

No ruling was made on this claim, as the court held there was insufficient evidence to prove the account remained subject to adverse measures.

The judgment overruled the court of first instance, which ruled that Belgian courts did not have jurisdiction to decide on the matter, leading to an appeal to the higher court by Vandendriessche....<<<Read More>>>...

“Shadow Banning” Is Written Into Twitter’s New Terms

[David Icke]: Twitter has written “shadow banning” A.K.A, censorship, into their new terms. The platform will now intentionally “limit the visibility” of some users. Expect those who dissent from the official narrative to be the ones censored.

Critics have accused Twitter of censorship for quite some time now. But this time, it’s official. The company has admitted they will attempt to silence those critical of the ruling class.

According to RT,the news terms will be taking effect in January of 2020. While the new terms don’t look like much to write home about, some tweaks to the language could have larger repercussions for users, limiting their reach behind the scenes without their knowledge.

“We may also remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services, limit distribution or visibility of any Content on the service, suspend or terminate users, and reclaim usernames without liability to you,” the new terms state.

The social media giant is telling users that it reserves the right shadow ban or “throttle” or censor certain accounts. And it is not clear on what basis it will make those decisions, although we guess (based on their past which is rife with censorship) that accounts that aren’t parroting the government’s official narrative will be on the list...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>....