Federal Foreign Office against Baerboock parody: Blocked on X

Since April 2023, the @baerbockpress account has been spreading satirical comments from a fake “Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock”. The account, which satirically satirizes the real Annalena Baerbock and makes fun of various tweets from her on X, was blocked after a complaint from the Foreign Office. In the meantime, however, the account has been released and is online again.

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As the Berliner Zeitung reported, the Foreign Office intervened against the account at X on July 28, 2023. The account used the same profile and background picture as the original account, and the account title “Foreign Minister Annalena Baebock (Parody)” would only have pointed out at the end that it was not the original. The title was also cut off in the timeline on mobile devices. It was therefore not apparent that it was not the original account of Foreign Minister Annlalena Baerbock. Consequently, the Foreign Office argued with a risk of confusion.

“Parody has its place in our democracy,” says the Foreign Office. “Public figures have to put up with it; of course, that also applies to the Foreign Minister.” At first glance, the parody background was not apparent to users, the Federal Foreign Office justified its approach. X complied with the request. Apparently X was able to follow the reasoning of the Foreign Office.

Back online with a small change

@baerbockpress then changed the title to “Foreign Minister Parody Annalena Baerbock”, but kept the profile and background image. X then released the account again. However, the verification hook that the account previously had is now missing.

Meanwhile, the number of @baerbockpress followers is increasing. From just over 25,000 followers before the ban, the channel now has over 52,000 followers after it was restored. The operators of the account thanked them politely: “50,000 💚 Thanks to all of you! Greetings go out to @Foreign Office”

(olb)

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