The Netherlands

How three young dutchmen cornered the nitrous oxide market

Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, is an illegal drug in the Netherlands. Yet Dutch streets are inundated with empty canisters, often labelled “FastGas”. Where do the canisters come from, and...

Faith in the feed

A Dutch report on how Gen Z is finding God through the algorithm As church pews across the Netherlands grow emptier, faith is quietly migrating online. A growing number of...

What 10-year-olds see on their phones

From hypnotic sludge videos to violent clips and beauty tutorials, Dutch children’s social media feeds reveal how algorithm-driven content is shaping their attention, self-image and emotional world de Volkskrant sent reporters...

The Digital Death Spiral

What happens when an influencer turns their mental illness and euthanasia plans into viral content? In this unsettling longread, Maud Effting and Haro Kraak investigate the rise of Ghanaian-British influencer...

Provenance unknown

A Dutch journalist investigates the sale of illegally excavated pottery from ancient Greece NRC’s Theo Toebosch grew suspicious recently when he saw an ancient Greek drinking cup – an intricately...

Jolie laide

A Dutch journalist follows those giving the “ugliest city in the Netherlands” a facelift. On the northernmost stretch of the Dutch mainland, where the North Sea becomes the intertidal Wadden...

The campaign that never dies

A storied association for the Netherlands’ progressive Turkish community celebrating its anniversary – and worrying about its future “I was shocked by what I found”, Maviye Karaman says of her...

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