A young Syrian posted his joy at the fall of Assad on social media. The result: out of 635 reactions, 620 were full of hate and incitement. There are many “trolls” on internet forums. They want to hurt, threaten and intimidate the writers with their comments, for example. Posts by trolls who like to use fake profiles often overstep the boundaries of freedom of expression. Their hate speech is often directed against minorities and attacks their dignity. Those affected can defend themselves against this.
Advice on how to handle hate messages:
Report: Individual posts or profiles can be reported to the social media providers. They can delete the post or profile.
Blocking: User profiles can be blocked. You will then no longer be able to see any messages or comments from them.
Counter-speech: Objective counter-speech from those not affected can make it clear that they do not tolerate hateful discrimination and attacks. It can show those affected by hate speech that they are not alone.
Advice: Young victims in particular can get help via the website https://kompetenznetzwerk-hass-im-netz.de. It offers legal and psychological services as well as technical support.
Defend yourself against attacks by reporting them
Criminal offenses such as incitement to hatred can be reported to the police or the public prosecutor’s office. This requires evidence such as screenshots of the message, the full date, time, user name and URL.
One address for this is the respect! reporting office of the Baden-Württemberg Youth Foundation. Visit https://meldestelle-respect.de/respect-app-spw/ to go directly to the reporting form. The reporting office checks the case and forwards it to the Federal Criminal Police Office if it is relevant under criminal law – see https://meldestelle-respect.de/faq/
More information:
Further detailed information from the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs at bmfsfj | Hass im Netz (pdf), the Baden-Württemberg State Center for Political Education at https://www.lpb-bw.de/hatespeech, as well as information and a brochure against hate comments online entitled “Wetterfest durch den Shitsorm” from the No Hate Speech Movement Germany at demokratie-leben | Wetterfest durch den Shitstorm
tun24121007
www.tuenews.de
002819
Hate and hate speech on the internet. Photo: tuenews INTERNATIONAL / Yousof Mahfouz.
