Colombia's court rules X owes journalists due process in account suspensions

Colombia's Constitutional Court on May 15, 2026, published Sentencia T-131 de 2026, a ruling that establishes for the first time that foreign social media platforms operating in Colombia must observe minimum due process standards when suspending accounts - and that Colombian courts have jurisdiction to enforce that obligation, even against companies with no physical presence in the country.

The decision, written by magistrate Jorge Enrique Ibanez Najar and issued by the Sala Quinta de Revision, resolves a constitutional protection action - known in Colombian law as an accion de tutela - filed on March 31, 2025, by Melquisedec Torres Ortiz, a radio journalist with more than 30 years of experience working for Caracol, the Spanish-language radio network owned by Grupo Prisa of Spain.

How the suspension happened

According to the court record, Torres Ortiz has held the handle @Melquisedec70 on the platform since May 2010. At the time of the events in question, he had more than 67,000 followers, and the platform's own analytics showed that his posts had reached more than 125 million impressions between February 2024 and January 2025, a period that also generated 3.7 million likes and 1.9 million reposts. Torres Ortiz held an X Premium subscription, paying 809,800 Colombian pesos for the 2025 year. His account had been verified for more than two years, and since December 11, 2023, it had been enrolled in X's advertising revenue-sharing program. According to the tutela, the first revenue payment arrived on December 22, 2023, and subsequent transfers followed, the last one reported on January 17, 2025.

On January 10, 2025, Torres Ortiz changed his profile photo to an image of Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, without altering his name or biography. The change coincided with the third inauguration of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, an event that a large part of the international community refused to recognize as legitimate.

On January 27, 2025, X informed Torres Ortiz by email that his account had been suspended. The email stated, according to the ruling: "After being reviewed by a human moderator, your account, Melquisedec70, was suspended for violating our rules. Specifically, for the following reasons: violation of the rules prohibiting inauthentic accounts. In particular, the rule that prohibits identity impersonation. You may not impersonate people, groups or organizations, or use a false identity to deceive others."

Torres Ortiz sent complaints to X on January 28 and 29, and on February 6 and 17, 2025. Each time he received an automated acknowledgment but no substantive reply. On February 4 he wrote to [email protected], explaining his journalistic identity, the length and verified status of his account, and stating: "If they had told me before the suspension, I would have immediately changed the profile photo."

On March 15, 2025, X responded by email - in English - saying: "We have reviewed your appeal and determined that your account will remain suspended for violating our Authenticity policy." No further reasoning was provided. When Torres Ortiz tried to log in, the platform displayed a message reading: "Your account is suspended. Following a thorough review, we determined that your account violated X's rules. Your account is now in permanent read-only mode, meaning you cannot post or repost content, or use the Like feature. You also cannot create new accounts."

During the suspension, Torres Ortiz identified at least two accounts that were impersonating him: @Melquisedec7O, which replaced the final zero with an uppercase O, and @MeIquisedec70, which replaced the lowercase l with an uppercase I. Both used his name and photograph to spread misleading messages. Because his own account was suspended, the platform did not allow him to report those impersonators.

What Torres Ortiz asked for

The journalist filed eight claims before the court. These ranged from reinstatement of his account with all 67,000+ followers and historical content intact, to removal of the impersonating accounts, to the creation of an independent content review committee with civil society representation in Colombia, to a request that the government suspend X's operation in Colombia until the company met a set of conditions within 30 days - a measure the court ultimately declined to order. He also sought diplomatic notes to the governments of Ireland and the United States asking those countries' regulators to investigate X's conduct, as well as an abstract indemnification for material damages caused by the suspension.

First instance and appeal

According to the ruling, on April 9, 2025 - while the first-instance case was still pending - X sent a message to the court from [email protected], stating only that the account @Melquisedec70 had been restored and that the full follower count might take time to appear. The court of first instance, Juzgado 60 Civil del Circuito de Bogota, issued its ruling on April 11, 2025, denying the tutela on the grounds that the main claim - account restoration - had been satisfied, constituting what Colombian procedural law calls a hecho superado, or a superseded fact. The court acknowledged, however, that X had not explained why the account had been suspended or why it was later restored.

Torres Ortiz appealed on April 23, 2025, arguing that serious procedural deficiencies remained unresolved. The Sala Civil of the Tribunal Superior del Distrito Judicial de Bogota confirmed the first-instance ruling on May 7, 2025. On June 26, 2025, the Constitutional Court's Sala de Seleccion de Tutelas Numero Seis selected the file for review and assigned it to the Sala Quinta.

Jurisdiction over foreign platforms

The Constitutional Court spent considerable space in the ruling establishing its authority to decide the case. According to the ruling, the court adopted a "moderate destination-country territoriality approach," under which Colombian judges can hear disputes originating in cyberspace when the facts produce clear effects in Colombia. The key factors in this case were that the journalist operated his account from Colombia, built an audience primarily in Colombia, and used the account as his main professional tool. Beyond that, Torres Ortiz had submitted his national identity card and bank account details to X for verification and for enrollment in the revenue-sharing program - a fact the court interpreted as the platform engaging in active processing of personal data of a Colombian resident.

The court grounded this jurisdictional analysis in Law 1581 of 2012, Colombia's data protection framework. According to the ruling, article 21 of that law gives the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC) powers to investigate data processing violations and order corrective measures even against controllers with no legal presence in Colombia. Article 26 prohibits cross-border transfers to countries that do not provide adequate data protection levels. The court concluded that a platform collecting identification and banking data from Colombian residents falls squarely within the scope of that statute - and that this legislative basis activates Colombian constitutional jurisdiction.

This reasoning aligns with a broader Latin American pattern that PPC Land has tracked as part of the region's regulatory evolution, and it echoes the global fragmentation of data protection standards documented in coverage of Vietnam's 2025 personal data decree.

The due process analysis

Despite confirming that the case was technically moot - because X had restored the account before the first ruling - the Constitutional Court chose to rule on the substance. This is permitted under Colombian constitutional procedure when a case raises issues that transcend the individual dispute.

The court applied a three-level analytical framework. At the first level, it examined the nature of the content. Political speech, journalism, and debate on matters of public interest all fall into a category the Colombian Constitution treats with heightened protection. The court concluded that Torres Ortiz's use of Machado's image as a profile photo was "a pictographic expression of a journalist, relevant to the development of public opinion on a matter of importance for political and social life." It counted as political opinion and journalistic commentary - not impersonation.

At the second level, the court examined the form of the expression. The ruling emphasized that constitutional protection of free expression covers non-verbal acts, including images, symbols, and other pictographic or symbolic conduct. Changing a profile photo to signal solidarity with a foreign political figure falls within that protection.

At the third level, the court considered the status of the person who sent the message. Journalists receive heightened protection because their ability to report depends on freedom from interference that would silence them. The court noted that Torres Ortiz had more than three decades of professional experience, was actively employed by a major national radio network, and had built a substantial digital audience.

Having established all three levels of heightened protection, the court applied what it called the "tripartite test" for restrictions on free expression: a restriction must be established in advance by law, must pursue a legitimate objective, and must be strictly necessary and proportionate. The platform's handling of the account fell short on the procedural dimension. According to the ruling, X did not warn Torres Ortiz before suspending his account, did not adequately explain its reasoning after the suspension, did not respond substantively to any of his four appeals, and did not provide him with an opportunity to contest the classification of his action as impersonation before the decision became final.

The court was careful to say that X's stated concern - preventing impersonation - was not unreasonable in principle. But it observed that the platform had been given the journalist's full identity, banking, and verification data. It held a contract with him for paid monetization. Given that context, a profile photo change alone was an insufficient basis for permanent suspension without contextual analysis and a meaningful opportunity for the user to respond.

What the court ordered

The ruling reached five dispositions. First, it confirmed the lower courts' denial of the tutela on the grounds of hecho superado, because the account had already been restored. Second, it instructed X to take into account in future moderation decisions: the specific characteristics of the user who publishes content; the nature or communicative purpose of the content; and the requirement that a punitive measure such as permanent account suspension must meet minimum due process standards, including transparency, published rules, and effective appeal mechanisms. Third, it instructed the Congress of the Republic, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MinTIC), the Agencia Nacional del Espectro (ANE), the SIC, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to advance - within their respective competencies - a special regulatory framework for the operation of foreign digital platforms in Colombia, with particular attention to content moderation, due process, and freedom of expression. Fourth, it disconnected the Agencia Nacional de Defensa Juridica del Estado from the case, finding no concrete interest. Fifth, it ordered standard communications to be dispatched pursuant to article 36 of Decree 2591 of 1991.

The court rejected six of the eight claims. It refused to order the removal of the impersonating accounts because those third parties had not been given a hearing. It declined to require X to create an independent review committee with Colombian representation, finding that this would exceed judicial competence and intrude on the company's organizational autonomy. It refused to order X's suspension from Colombia. It refused to order diplomatic notes to Ireland and the United States. And it refused the abstract indemnification, finding that the restoration of the account had effectively remedied the underlying violation and that civil courts remained available for any remaining damages claim.

The regulatory gap and international context

Multiple parties to the review proceedings had highlighted the absence of any framework specifically governing digital platforms in Colombia. The SIC noted in its submission that it had issued multiple orders against global technology companies between 2019 and 2023 in its capacity as data protection regulator, but that it had "encountered multiple barriers for these companies to effectively account" - particularly transnationals that operated at scale without a Colombian domicile. The organization Linterna Verde submitted that since X introduced its Premium system, "there has been significant opacity regarding the criteria that guide the functioning of the automated content moderation systems."

The court's ruling referenced several international instruments as non-binding but instructive references for future Colombian legislation. These included the European Union's Digital Services Act of 2022, which requires major platforms operating in the EU to publish annual reports on their content moderation decisions and to notify the European Commission of each content removal using standardized formats. The ruling also cited UNESCO's draft guidelines for a multi-stakeholder approach to digital platform regulation, and the Santa Clara Principles 2.0, which call for clear and accessible rules, mandatory notification with appeal information, and periodic accountability reviews. Additionally, the court cited the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' June 2024 report on digital inclusion and content governance, which specified that content restriction notifications must explain whether automated mechanisms were used, and that appeal mechanisms must have defined resolution timescales.

The court also referenced a July 8, 2025 judgment from the European Court of Human Rights in the case Google LLC and Others v. Russia, which stated that internet intermediaries managing content on their platforms have "duties of care and due diligence" that "may increase in proportion to the reach of the corresponding expressive activity."

Why this matters for the advertising and marketing community

For advertising professionals, the ruling matters on several interconnected levels. The X monetization program at the center of the case - which enrolled Torres Ortiz from December 2023 and processed his banking data in exchange for advertising revenue share payments - is the same infrastructure that brands access when buying inventory on X. The ruling treats that commercial relationship as a legally significant data processing agreement that creates obligations for the platform, not just business terms that can be overridden by community guidelines.

X's evolving brand safety architecture, documented in detail on PPC Land, depends on the platform's ability to control content adjacency - which in turn depends on account moderation decisions. If those decisions are now subject to court oversight in Colombia and potentially other Latin American jurisdictions applying similar territorial reasoning, the legal risk profile of the platform's content controls changes. Advertisers who have built programmatic exclusions around X for brand safety reasons face a more complex picture when the legal standards governing those underlying moderation choices are actively contested in multiple countries.

The court's instruction to the Colombian legislature to create a special regulatory framework for foreign digital platforms also carries forward-looking implications. If Colombia enacts rules that require platforms to maintain local legal representation, publish moderation decision criteria, or provide certified appeal timescales - as the ruling's reference to EU and UNESCO frameworks suggests - compliance obligations would apply to any platform generating revenue from Colombian users. Given the reach of programmatic advertising, where a campaign running in one country may serve impressions in another through supply-side platform integrations, those obligations could affect multinational campaign structures in ways not yet fully mapped.

The parallel debate about content moderation transparency at Meta, covered extensively on PPC Land, shows that the tension between platform moderation autonomy and external accountability standards is not limited to X or to Latin America. The Colombian ruling adds a binding precedent - not just soft guidance - to that conversation.

Timeline

May 2010 - Melquisedec Torres Ortiz creates the account @Melquisedec70 on the platform then known as Twitter
November 2023 - X introduces three-tier Premium subscription structure, per PPC Land coverage
December 11, 2023 - X determines that @Melquisedec70 is eligible for advertising revenue sharing after identity verification
December 22, 2023 - First advertising revenue payment transferred to Torres Ortiz
January 7, 2025 - Meta announces the end of its third-party fact-checking program in favor of a Community Notes model, per PPC Land reporting
January 10, 2025 - Torres Ortiz changes his profile photo to an image of Maria Corina Machado, coinciding with Nicolas Maduro's third presidential inauguration in Venezuela
January 17, 2025 - Final advertising revenue transfer to Torres Ortiz before the suspension
January 27, 2025 - X suspends @Melquisedec70, citing impersonation under its Authenticity policy
January 28-29, 2025 - Torres Ortiz submits first appeals to X; receives only automated acknowledgments
February 4, 2025 - Torres Ortiz writes to [email protected] explaining the context of the profile photo change
February 6 and 17, 2025 - Two further appeals submitted; no substantive response received
March 15, 2025 - X notifies Torres Ortiz in English that his account will remain suspended for violating the Authenticity policy
March 31, 2025 - Torres Ortiz files accion de tutela against X and several Colombian government bodies
April 9, 2025 - X notifies Juzgado 60 Civil del Circuito de Bogota by email that @Melquisedec70 has been restored
April 11, 2025 - First-instance ruling denies tutela on grounds of hecho superado; court notes X gave no explanation for either the suspension or the restoration
April 23, 2025 - Torres Ortiz appeals the first-instance ruling
May 7, 2025 - Sala Civil of the Tribunal Superior de Bogota confirms first-instance ruling
June 26, 2025 - Constitutional Court selects file T-11.192.782 for review
August 15, 2025 - Magistrate issues procedural order soliciting responses from all parties and inviting civil society organizations and law schools to submit amicus-style interventions
January 8, 2026 - PPC Land reports on Google Ads purchasing X inventory through programmatic channels, raising brand safety questions for advertisers who had set policies against X
January 17, 2026 - X announces doubling of creator revenue pool, per PPC Land coverage
March 4, 2026 - PPC Land publishes detailed analysis of X's brand safety architecture incorporating Grok AI and IAS verification
May 15, 2026 - Sala Quinta de Revision issues Sentencia T-131 de 2026, establishing due process obligations for X in Colombia and urging the legislature and five government bodies to enact a regulatory framework for foreign digital platforms

Summary

Who - The Sala Quinta de Revision of Colombia's Constitutional Court, composed of magistrates Paola Andrea Meneses Mosquera, Miguel Polo Rosero, and Jorge Enrique Ibanez Najar (presiding), ruled on a tutela filed by journalist Melquisedec Torres Ortiz against the social network X (formerly Twitter) and several Colombian government ministries and agencies.

What - The court confirmed lower courts' denial of the tutela on procedural grounds (the account had already been restored), but issued substantive guidance establishing that: X's suspension of Torres Ortiz's account for posting a political profile photo lacked adequate due process; the photo constituted protected political and journalistic expression; X has an obligation under Colombian constitutional law to observe minimum procedural standards - including prior notice, contextual analysis, transparent reasoning, and effective appeal mechanisms - before permanently suspending a verified, monetized journalist's account; and Colombia has jurisdiction over foreign platforms that process personal data of Colombian residents regardless of whether those platforms maintain a legal presence in the country.

When - The underlying events ran from January 10 to March 15, 2025 (the suspension period). The tutela was filed March 31, 2025. The Constitutional Court issued its ruling on May 15, 2026.

Where - The events occurred on the platform X (formerly Twitter), with the judicial proceedings moving through Juzgado 60 Civil del Circuito de Bogota, the Sala Civil of the Tribunal Superior del Distrito Judicial de Bogota, and finally the Constitutional Court of Colombia in Bogota.

Why - The case arose because X suspended Torres Ortiz's account for a profile photo change it classified as identity impersonation, without warning him in advance, without providing a detailed explanation, and without offering a meaningful opportunity for him to contest the decision before or after the suspension was made permanent. The court used the case to establish constitutional guidelines for content moderation by private digital platforms operating in Colombia, and to call on the national legislature to enact binding rules for foreign platforms.