The European division of the company behind the social media platform X, X International Unlimited Company, has been found guilty by the Brussels Criminal Court of the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. The company has been fined 24,000 euro. It still can lodge an appeal against the verdict if it so wishes.
The case centres on video footage lasting 6 seconds that shows a Belgian woman being raped. The footage was shared on social media platforms embedded within a longer video in 2020. The woman approached the Belgian Institute for the Equality of Women and Men to have the images taken offline.
Since July 2020 the institute for the Equality of Women and Men which since July 2020 has had the authority to provide legal assistance to people whose intimate images have been shared without consent. It contacts social media platforms and most took the video footage offline. However, this proved more difficult with X that at the time the video was posted was still known as Twitter.
The institute’s lawyers contacted the company via take-down notices and its online contact form, reporting a copyright infringement, the non-consensual distribution of intimate images and revenge porn resulting from a sexual offence.
Twitter repeatedly asked for evidence that the lawyers had a mandate to act on behalf of the victim and requested her identity. The social media platform then closed the case without further action. The video was only removed after an order from an examining magistrate.
The company behind X’s European arm claims that the complaint submitted by the institute was insufficiently clear as the images were not clearly sexually explicit, nor was it clear that the video had been made and distributed without consent. Although the video had been submitted as evidence on a CD-ROM during the criminal investigation, the CD-ROM had been lost. Twitter/X saw this as grounds for declaring the criminal proceedings inadmissible.
The Brussels Public Prosecutor’s office had also sought an acquittal, arguing that it was not clear from the video that a rape had taken place, and that it was insufficiently clear that the acts in question constituted revenge porn. The court dismissed this argument.
“If it is clear that the images contain sexually suggestive content, it is also irrelevant whether they were filmed with or without consent,” the court stated. “If the images are distributed without the consent of the parties, or one of the parties, a criminal offence has been committed … It is not clear what further information or context Twitter required in order to remove the images from its platform”, the judge said.
The court added that the fact that the report originated from the institute and not from the victim herself is irrelevant. It also ruled that the criminal proceedings were not inadmissible because the CD-ROM containing the images had been lost. However, given the considerable time since the events, the court decided to impose the minimum fine.