In the future, German sport wants to fight against hate speech online with united forces and harder than ever before. The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), the German Football Association (DFB) and the German Football League (DFL) jointly took a clear position at a press conference on Monday (May 13th, 2024) in Frankfurt am Main.
In the future, the associations will cooperate closely with the law enforcement authorities and consistently file criminal charges if violent, racist or discriminatory language is used.
“We turned to the public prosecutor’s office because we were simply fed up with our athletes being insulted,” said DOSB President Thomas Weikert: “We will protect our athletes, not only, but especially during major sporting events where they are particularly in focus.”
Attacks on the internet against athletes
Together, the DOSB, DFB and DFL are calling on the legislature to make it easier to prosecute people who attack athletes competing for Germany online.
The Internet is “not a legal vacuum,” added DFB 1st Vice President Ronny Zimmermann. After the insults to the U17 world champions, it was decided to take even stricter action against them in the future. In recent months, the DFB has primarily forwarded racist discrimination and hate speech to the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) for criminal investigation and prosecution.
DOSB relies on AI, football on action game days
The DOSB will offer the athletes of Team D for Paris an AI-based solution that filters out attacks against their social media channels before publication and offers the opportunity to report serious violations to the ZIT and file targeted charges. The DFL is committed to combating hate online with a variety of projects; most recently, for example, there was an action game day under the motto “Together. Stop Hate. Be a Team.”
National player Jonathan Tah accompanied the campaign with a video message distributed by the DFB: “The anonymity of many users can spread a lot of negativity,” said the Leverkusen player. “I’ve experienced things like that too – whether it’s racist or has other backgrounds. It was always very discriminatory and didn’t feel good.” That’s why it’s “important that associations and clubs talk about it as best they can.”
The fight against hate speech in England is more advanced
In English football, discriminatory language has been pursued for longer and, above all, more consistently. A 21-year-old Briton was sentenced to prison after a racist post about Marcus Rashford. Premier League players, but also national team players like Lauren James, have repeatedly asked the major networks to block accounts after they were repeatedly insulted, especially via direct messages on Instagram.
In the meantime, awareness of hate speech has also increased within the stadiums. Last year, a Crystal Palace fan was fined and banned from the stadium for several years for racist comments during a game against Tottenham. Such drastic penalties are still rare in German football.
“Our criminal law provides for severe penalties for insults, threats and incitement to hatred online in order to protect victims from such postings,” explained Senior Public Prosecutor Benjamin Krause: “As prosecutors, we want to do our part to ensure that the authors of criminal postings are identified and stand up for them must answer to the judiciary for their actions.”
Criminal charges are needed to prosecute hate speech
To date, however, insults and slander can only be prosecuted if the athlete submits a written criminal complaint for each posting. The associations jointly demand that the possibility of criminal prosecution, which has been in effect since April 2021 for corresponding crimes to the detriment of politicians, even without an express criminal complaint, must “also apply to athletes who represent the German colors.”
