On platform X, national politicians receive many more threats and hate messages than is known to the judicial authorities. Politicians in The Hague reported threats and incitement 493 times last year, while De Volkskrant alone found hundreds of such messages in a week on the platform that has been owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk since 2022.

Researched to map the political debate on X the Volkskrant(opens in new window) more than 80,000 messages that were posted in the week prior to the House of Representatives elections in response to national politicians and parties. Of these, more than 22,000 were aimed at belittling, humiliating, intimidating or threatening them or others, the newspaper concludes.

Of those messages, an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 contain criminal insults or group insults. This involves insults, Nazi comparisons or insulting statements about women, LGBTI people, Muslims or Jews. Seven hundred of the messages fall into more serious criminal categories, such as threats (112 times), incitement (150) and hate speech (428).

These messages are addressed to politicians from almost all parties. VVD members receive almost as many negative messages on X as politicians from D66 or GroenLinks-PvdA, the newspaper concludes.

VVD faction leader Brekelmans, formerly Minister of Defense, received the highest percentage of negative responses to X during the election week of all politicians. Only representatives of PVV, FVD and BBB received a majority of positive responses on the platform.

Of all criminal messages, only the tip of the iceberg reaches the judicial authorities through reporting. “On an annual basis, this may involve many thousands of threats,” concludes prosecutor Fridolijn Kuipers.

The judiciary has no insight into these numbers, because there is no organization in the Netherlands that checks the social media of politicians for criminal expressions. Reports are the only indicator.

National politicians have long stopped reading the comments under their messages on X, they told De Volkskrant. Sometimes a response reaches them via a concerned family member, but the responses that the newspaper presented to the MPs are often new to them. The size also surprises them. A number of them still filed a report after the conversation with the newspaper, something the Public Prosecution Service (OM) encourages.

In the vast majority of cases, the Public Prosecution Service assessed reported threats as punishable: last year in 356 of the 493 cases. Those numbers concern all social media, but the vast majority of reports came in about X.

The Public Prosecution Service often subsequently decided not to prosecute because it could not identify the suspects. Requests from Dutch investigative services refused by X also often caused cases to get stuck.

Yet national politicians continue to eagerly use the platform. Of the 150 MPs, 117 are active on X, and eighteen MPs have a protected or dormant account, de Volkskrant reported.

All 28 ministers of the Jetten cabinet have a government account on X. The Prime Minister emphasizes in a response that he regularly reports threats against him on social media. But he also says he no longer reads all the comments.

Stopping on the platform that has been rigorously changed since 2022 is difficult for many politicians. Before Musk’s takeover, the use of the short message service was very popular in The Hague. Politicians post their bite-sized responses to news developments there, and journalists know where to find those messages. Politicians see no suitable alternative and want their voice to be reflected on X as well, or especially, as a countermeasure.

Only Volt has left X, until recently the only Dutch political party. GroenLinks-PvdA informed the Volkskrant shortly before publication that it had now also stopped. VVD faction leader Brekelmans has a different view. “As long as there’s a critical mass somewhere to spread your message and get information, that’s what we’re dealing with,” he says.