Danny Mekić wins Felipe Rodriquez Award for successfully suing X
Danny Mekić was presented with the Felipe Rodriquez Award by Bits of Freedom on 13 February. The PhD student won the award for successfully suing X after the social media platform had ‘shadow banned’ him.
Mekić was presented with the award at the annual Big Brother Awards which are organised by Bits of Freedom, an international organisation that pursues an open and equal information society. Along with him, former MEP Marietje Schaake also received a Felipe Rodriquez Award. She received the award for addressing the lack of democratic control over Big Tech companies in her book The Tech Coup.
‘It was a huge surprise when I learned a few weeks ago that the organisation wanted to present this award to me. I was even more honoured to receive the award alongside someone who has meant so much for the digital freedoms of citizens in the European Union and far beyond.’
Internet pioneer
The Felipe Rodriquez Award was established by Bits of Freedom in 2015 to put individuals in the spotlight who have made an extraordinary contribution to protecting our rights. The award is named after a pioneer of the Dutch internet: Felipe Rodriquez. As founder of XS4ALL, the first private internet provider, Rodriquez helped make the internet accessible to a broad public. In 1995, he was also the initiator of the Meldpunt Kinderporno (a hotline for reporting child pornography), which remains an important tool in combating child abuse today.
Mekić: ‘To be seen as a “champion” when you exercise your fundamental rights and win a court case is bittersweet. That this is considered something special shows us how difficult people feel it is to exercise their rights – and admittedly it is. It should be much more normal that we are allowed and able to exercise the rights we have'.
Shadow ban
The PhD student is referring to the action he brought against X for its practice of shadow banning and for which he won the award. ‘A shadow ban is a measure imposed on you without you being aware, often on major online platforms,’ Mekić explains. ‘If you get a shadow ban on, say, X, formerly Twitter, you still see other users’ posts, but they don't see your posts and account or see them less often.'
Large platform are obliged to inform you as a user about this under the Digital Services Regulation (DSA), but they do not always do so. According to the PhD candidate, these notifications do matter: ‘Platforms would rather not want users to be able to check this, because then they could file complaints or go to court. These platforms would rather quietly go about their business.'
Court case
Mekić was the victim of a shadow ban after publishing an article in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant about an advertisement campaign by the European Commission that did not comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). ‘After I shared my findings on Twitter, I was told by other users that they couldn’t find me and that my posts were less visible. After getting no response to my emails and a registered letter, and also virtually no response to my access request on the grounds of the GDPR, I decided to take the case to court.’ The court ruled in favour of the PhD candidate, citing the GDPR and DSA. The decision confirmed that large platforms like X cannot shadow ban users without notifying them of this.
According to the PhD candidate, it is important not to accept that large companies will determine or circumvent applicable laws and regulations with their unlimited (legal) budgets. 'The only way to stop this is to regulate, and especially where it is felt most: in the revenue model. I’m increasingly becoming a supporter of banning algorithmic timelines.' According to Mekić, this is the best way for people to regain control over what they consume for hours every day, rather than the profit-maximisation-driven algorithms of a handful of companies.
Big Brother Awards
Bits of Freedom presents the Big Brother Awards every year. The organisation draws attention to individuals, companies and government bodies that have committed gross breaches of citizens’ privacy in that year. The public votes on candidates for the Public Award. They get to decide who was the worst offender that year. A professional jury awards the Expert Prize. This year the Public Award went to the Minister of Finance and the Expert Prize went to DPG Media.