Direct Talk

The Internet is freely available to everyone

and has become an essential means
of communication in modern life.

However, abuse of online anonymity –

both verbal and otherwise –
can sometimes go too far,

with digital violence becoming
a widespread social problem.

One woman working to tackle the difficult task
of regulating online hate crime

is Anna-Lena von Hodenberg.

She wants to establish
true freedom of speech.

Anna-Lena von Hodenberg
Social Entrepreneur

Freedom of speech is not saying everything.

If you see that somebody's
attacked on the street,

are you going to walk away?

No, maybe you call the police

or you say to someone "Let's go there" and
you know try not to escalate the situation.

Do the same thing on the internet.

We spoke to von Hodenberg about her mission

to re-assess the long-neglected issue
of online rights and dignity.

Giving People Back Their Dignity on the Net

Anna-Lena von Hodenberg runs HateAid.

Its office is located in Berlin, Germany.

There are currently around 50 staff members.

Direct counselling is given to those who
have been slandered or threatened online,

providing access to psychological treatment,

protection of personal information,
and gathering evidence.

We have victims with accounts
where you have thousands of comments.

Hate comments.

And if you ask the victim,

"Okay, make screenshots of
all the thousand hate comments",

they would then afterwards
be emotionally completely drained

because they have to read all the insults
that are directed against them.

So, from an emotional point of view,
you have to tell the victims "Don't read it."

But who is going to do then this
so they can go to the police?

That's what we do.

Von Hodenberg previously
worked as a television journalist.

She feels that German society
had been sensitive to issues such as racism

after a period of reflection
following World War 2.

But things changed around 2015,

when Germany accepted refugees
from Syria and other countries.

I come from a quite political family.

Quite anti-fascist family.
So, I grew up with "Never again."

The Holocaust or something like that,

a fascist government in Germany
can never happen again.

And in 2015, it was a very
particular situation.

There was especially through
social media, a huge campaign,

campaign of fear that all these refugees
would come to Germany that there was a crisis,

that they would take our jobs,
that you know, they would rape our women.

If you have like a marker that shows
that you maybe could be a refugee,

you could be beaten up,
you would be insulted on the street.

We had then we had growing antisemitism.

And that was mainly stirred through, targeted
and organized social media campaigns.

And they consisted of
telling misinformation and

pure lies,

but also in attacking the voices

that were openly supporting
refugees coming to Germany,

really attacking them with hate attacks.

So, people start censoring themselves because
they have seen what happens to others.

And this is also what we saw in the study.

60% of people and especially
from certain groups say

we don't dare to say
our political opinion anymore.

Their freedom of speech is under threat,

and they don't have freedom of speech
actually anymore in the space.

So, for me, it was clear.
I have to do something else.

Von Hodenberg quit her job as a journalist
and in 2018 founded HateAid,

Germany's first organization
to support victims of digital violence.

The following year, an event occurred
that shook German society to its core.

Walter Lubcke, a local politician
from the central German state of Hesse,

a campaigner for the protection of refugees,
was shot dead at his home

after being threatened online
by far-right groups for four years.

Comments, all the death threats and
other YouTube videos against the politician,

for years.

Shared thousands and thousands of times
on YouTube and they were just

not deleted, they were not flagged

and then after all these years
there was this complete toxic environment

where then the perpetrator just went there

and said, "I have a whole community who
just is waiting for me to kill this person"

and so he did.

And then afterwards and that
the same videos there was celebration.

People said "We are dancing on his grave.

We are finally, he was asking for it.
He got what he deserved."

And it was just

the most horrible thing to,
it was so appalling to see that.

How can such a situation be avoided?

Von Hodenberg visits another politician

who has been the target of
digital violence for many years.

Renate Kunast previously served as Minister
for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection

in Gerhard Schroder's government.

False statements attributed to her
were spread widely online.

For four years she made repeated requests
to social media platforms to delete them.

When von Hodenberg investigated
how platforms responded to hate crimes,

she realized that the system
was stacked against the victims.

You have to flag this first to them

and then they take it down.

It's "Notice and Takedown procedure"
it's called.

So, what it means for the victim is that
Renate then, needs to go into the internet

and find all of these memes,
thousand times shared maybe 5,000 times shared.

We don't know.

We said it cannot be true. This cannot be,
this burden cannot lie on the victim.

Von Hodenberg suggested
Renate Kunast file a law suit with her

against the platform operator Meta.

"Renate,

I know it's a big thing
to go against a company like Meta,

but would you be willing to do it?"

and Renate is a courageous woman
and she said "Yes, let's do it."

And then we yeah, we prepared the case.

In court, Meta argued that

"It was technically difficult
and also too expensive

to distinguish between damaging content
and journalistic content."

To disprove the company's claims,
von Hodenberg and her colleagues

sent questions to researchers at the
University of Berkeley in the United States.

And this professor who is really
like a super reputation professor,

he said he wrote us
as this expertise that said

"No, Meta is able to do it,"
and the court followed it.

So, we won in all instance in the court said

"Yes, Meta is obliged to find and then
delete the same content

and also similar content.

In April 2022, the Regional Court
of Frankfurt ordered Meta

to remove the illegal content
and pay damages.

Meta appealed, but HateAid won
in the second hearing.

Judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
"After all, a willingness to participate in the state and society can only be
expected if those who are involved and make a public contribution
are guaranteed adequate protection of their personal rights."

I really had tears in our eyes
when we saw this

because it really shows that
the highest court is acknowledging

how digital violence is a threat
to our democratic system.

Now new cases that we brought to normal courts
have been judged in a different way

because of this verdict.

So yeah, priceless.

Everyone was just like
"Yes, thank you for not putting up with it."

And we do a lot of also
local politicians especially,

on the local level, we're not so seeing

most of the time are very vulnerable
also to the digital violence

who wrote to us and
who said that gave me hope

now I will go against
the perpetrators as well.

To date, HateAid has supported
around 4,000 victims.

More than 500 cases have been brought
to court, and nearly 90% have been won,

restoring dignity and imbuing
the victims with courage.

The most important thing
is the signal that we send.

We also try to talk about our wins.

We try to tell perpetrators
"Look, spread the words.

If you insult people, if you defame people
on the internet, that's not something legal,

you can get a letter and then
you have to pay 2,000 euros."

And also for the victims it's glorious.

After they have been publicly
so insulted and so defamed

then to say a court
officially gave me Justice.

Von Hodenberg's achievements have
attracted attention both at home and abroad

and she is highly regarded
as a social reformer.

Meanwhile, slander against her,
has also surfaced on the Internet.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean
that you can say everything.

There's a law that says
"You can't threat people with murder",

"You can't publish personal
information about people."

So, we have all these laws
already in the analog world.

And this is the limit of freedom of speech.

So, we have that in the analog world,
now we also need it in the online world.

And we always oftentimes get the criticism
because we want to identify perpetrators.

But if you want to protect women,

the weak in our society
that right now are attacked,

you have to identify also perpetrators.

I don't want a law that everyone
was with their real name on social media,

absolutely not.

But for example, if you drive your car
there's a license plate.

And I don't know your name
if I see the license plate,

but if you are in an accident
by the license plate, I can identify you.

Something like that.

When print was invented,
when the radio was invented,

there was always a great potential
for democratization.

But if it's not regulated,
then it can be used for the bad as well.

Through print in these early days,
a lot of pamphlets were spread

of women who were midwives for example,
that they were witches.

And with the radio, it was used
by the Nazis as a propaganda,

as the number one propaganda instrument.

So, we are at the same point with
our digital revolution now with social media.

In order to fight digital violence,
von Hodenberg and her colleagues

continue to work to create
solidarity between victims,

transcending political beliefs
and organizational boundaries.

They also provide training for
the Police and judicial institutions

to help them understand
this new concept of digital violence.

It's great because you can see the changes.

You can see when we trained police
a victim comes to a police station,

other things happen.

They treat them differently.

When we see courts where
judges have been in our seminars,

we see that the verdicts are different
because they look through a different lens

on the digital space.

In 2020, HateAid developed an app
for the Hessian Ministry of Justice.

When a user finds
violating content and reports it,

HateAid investigates and forwards
the information to the prosecutor's office,

nipping the damage in the bud.

Von Hodenberg and her colleagues
are also involved in developing legislation

for digital regulations in the EU

and are working on new issues
such as online pornography.

I think with laws and policies
if we look at it in a holistic way,

we can certainly minimize the problem but
it will be with all the crimes in the world

will never solve it completely.

Also because the roots for it,
lies somewhere else,

as racism, antisemitism, hate against women,

they are not born in the digital space.

They are born in our heads.

As long as we as a society
do not solve this problem as humans,

it will never be completely solved
also in the digital space.

There's a phrase that von Hodenberg
always keeps in mind.

So my motto is "Never give up."

And I think this is like this first thing
where you have to dare to,

to do things and then you have to
persist and you can't give up.

My parents asked their parents
what they did during the second world war.

So what is my daughter going to
ask me "What did you do?"

And I want to say "I did something

and I didn't let them silence myself
and I didn't look away.

This is what I did."

And so I will not give up.

Never.