Anyone who is loud on the net is heard – and often hated. Our author has learned how digital attacks feel: insulting, dehumanism, shocking. But instead of silence, she asks questions.
Where does this hate come from? Who benefits from it? And what does he do with us – individual and socially? A personal analysis about the system behind the anger.
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The most violent hate message I ever got came from a Karl-August. His full name was in the email, in his signature there was also his address. He threw with N and M words around himself, never seemed to have gone over that some people prefer to say chocolate cocso than the other terms that were once for sugar foam with chocolate. And at the end of his email he threatened me vague to be processed into soap. Good old German tradition.
What led to this bucket hatred in my email inbox? A comment in a daily newspaper in which I criticized any statement by Friedrich Merz, at that time “only” CDU chairman. It was not about N-words, gender or speech bans-but Karl-August didn’t care. His hatred had to go somewhere and then I became the addressee.
Messages like those of Karl-August unfortunately end up in my mailboxes or in my comment columns. The topics don’t care: sometimes it is about Merz, sometimes about Shirin David’s relationship with the press, sometimes about political science theories. If the article circulates far enough, at some point someone kisses me in the timeline. Sexist, racist, misanthropic, the main thing is that it will be injured. And with that I am still one of those who are lucky enough not to have to wade through digital shallows of hatred every day.
Where does this brutalization of the discourse come from? And what does she do with all of us? The second question is easier to answer than the first: “The increasing aggressiveness on the Internet creates a climate of uncertainty and fear among citizens: inside and leads to restrictions on expressions of opinion” – that is the conclusion of a major study by the University of Leipzig. And not only those who are directly affected by hate are unsettled and silent, but also everyone else. Because who wants to get into a hate wave?
Hate lets people silence. And it doesn’t matter which direction the hatred comes from, whether it is afraid of discriminatory agitation, threats, or even very emotional Popfans. I know Kolleg: Inside, who no longer operate social media accounts and have given them their reach massively because they have researched the connections between Hollywood stars and Scientology. In others, it was “only” disappointed Taylor swift fans who found a record criticism unreasonable. The result, however, is the same: people say goodbye to the discourse. In science this is called the “silencing effect”. And that is good: it will be pretty quiet. At least with the voices that strive for more nuanced perspectives. Those who go brutally and at most loudly ultimately seem to win the discourse. At least on the Internet.
The criminal lawyer Hannah Heuser researches hatred on the Internet and was also involved in the Leipzig study. For them it is clear: the supposed contrast in the topic between freedom of expression on the one hand and personal rights on the other is outdated: “Hate on the net is often negotiated between two poles. One side wants to act harder, for the other there is any procedure censorship.” But there would also be freedom of expression against freedom of expression, she tells me: “Perhaps sometimes the freedom of expression of the sounds to protect the freedom of expression of the quietly has to be restricted.”
Where does this hate come from now? There are many theories about this, but the background is not that easy to fight: If you blow hatred on the Internet, you often act anonymously. And usually doesn’t feel like speaking to researchers: inside. Hannah Heuser, for example, evaluated investigative files instead. The result? Apart from the fact that it is between 75 and 80 percent men who commit the crimes, as with other crime fields, Hass also knows no categories. No age, no degree, no income class, no origin. “It runs through all social classes,” says Heuser, often even children and adolescents end up in such criminal proceedings because in class chats suddenly Nazi memes are posted and the kids want to continue to beat each other. Injustice? It’s going ok.
It should be similar in the cases of over -ambitious fans: in many cases it is probably not clear to them what consequences their actions have, how it systematically destroys discourse. Others use hatred and the resulting very strategically, with agreed shitstorms, so-called “sock dolls”, ie multiple accounts, or bot networks to produce “artificial outrage”, as they call Hannah Heuser, and then, if necessary, change the social climate. And then there is simply the troll that acts out of the joy of destruction, destructively, mostly without a solid political agenda.
What can you do about all hatred on the net? In the meantime, a lot of things have been regulated in theory. Only these laws are enforced far too rarely. Partly because more people show hatred, but by no means everyone. Partly because it takes a certain technical knowledge to determine in digital space. There are more and more specialized structures that deal with it, but there are still a lot of room for improvement.
The hope of being able to report the news from Karl-August was hopeless: he knew very well how he could scold and just stayed in the area of the legal. However, Karl-August did not achieve his goal: I have not become silent. On the contrary, he spurred me on becoming louder. And for that I am almost a little grateful to him.