Chronicles of a hoax II

Today I had déjà vu: a young man was labeled an assassin because of a media appearance. The reason? He visually fit into a prejudiced grid. Southern type. Must be a terrorist.

Why déjà vu? Because I knew this story, only back then it was Anas Modamani who slipped into the hate machine through no fault of his own. Now it's not Anas, now it's another young man. This man is not a refugee like Anas is, this young man did not take a selfie with Chancellor Merkel, but this young man helped the station oe24.tv with its reporting and was part of a broadcast via telephone. So that he wasn't just heard, a photo of him was shown.

April 7, 6:04 p.m.: A context-free photo

This broadcast was broadcast on April 7, 2018. It is this overlay that gave rise to a photo, a photo that was distributed thousands of times in various compilations within two days.

Incidentally, the oe24 cannot be blamed for any errors, on the contrary. Everything was done correctly there, because a picture of the partner who was connected by telephone is completely acceptable, especially since oe24 assured us that the name of the person shown and the reason for the display were also mentioned.

But we know the hatred of social media. We know the deviousness and, above all, the blind stubbornness when it comes to stereotypes.

April 8th, 12:02 p.m.: the “sour sour” Franck

A Facebook account who calls himself Franck and cannot easily be assigned to a real person takes the photographed television image and slightly distorts it. It removes the channel's overlays, making it difficult to determine the origin of the image. He also gives this picture its now cynical character: This is supposed to be the German Jens.

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Apart from the completely nonsensical suggestion that Germans can apparently only be blonde and blue-eyed, would never commit a crime and therefore the police, the media and German politicians have to lie, the photo of a man who is completely innocent is being recklessly used here and has absolutely nothing to do with the attack.

The hateful horror begins: people who really have no idea who is in the picture wallow in a pool of complacent cynicism. Accompanied by hundreds of likes, everyone feels they are right, no one has any doubts about the form and message of the presentation.

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The number of distributions this photo now has is no less bad. After a little more than a day, almost 11,000 people are of the opinion that they can or must distribute the picture of an (in)innocent man in order to portray him as the perpetrator.

Of course, many of the distributors are rightly wondering why the man in the photo doesn't look like a stereotypical Jens R.. On the one hand, they're right to ask themselves that, because 48-year-old Jens R. isn't in the photo. On the other hand, they are not asking themselves this because they have noticed the fake, but because they are firmly convinced that the real perpetrator is here and that the police, media and politicians have lied.

April 8th, 12:51 p.m.: Martin Schäfer AfD

A politician from the Hochsauerland district also joins in with a lot of reach. The comment cannot hide its sarcasm.

MIMIKAMA

There are hundreds of interactions here too. But if you think this is the only politician who publishes something like this, you are wrong.

April 8th, 1:54 p.m.: Sandro Scheer, AfD Göppingen

The false report continues, a new upload (NO, it is not a division, but actually a new, similar violation) can be found as a public message on the Facebook profile of the AfD politician Sandro Scheer. He makes no secret of how little he thinks of personal rights. Or that he probably doesn't want to believe the police. Scheer uploads the image without pixels; we made it unrecognizable.

To put it this way: There are two people in the following screenshot. One of them committed a criminal offense in public and will receive a report:

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Currently (04/09/2018, 7:54 p.m.) Scheer's status is not available. Furthermore, my private profile was blocked. Boy, do you think I don't still see what you post?

But the whole thing can be even better!

April 9th, 7:46 a.m.: Wolfgang's collage

A Facebook user named Wolfgang stands out because he repeatedly posts a small collage accompanied by a few question marks as a comment under individual distributions. This collage combined false reporting from Romania in which the perpetrator was described as a Kurd and the photo of the American comedian, satirist and author Sam Hyde was passed off as the perpetrator's photo.

The photo of Sam Hyde was gallantly concealed by the “I-want-Jens-R.-to-be-a-foreigner” propagandists; only the hint that he was a Kurd is included in this collage with the photographed television picture connected. But even in this form, whether you like it or not, the young man's personal rights are being ignored.

The fact remains: it has nothing to do with the attack, no matter how hard people try to maintain this slander with a variety of images and depictions.

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April 9, 9:44 a.m.: Mimikama office

It's a tragedy: We have received countless inquiries about the allegations, which have now been online for almost 21 hours. An email has just been sent to the oe24 editorial team. To our delight, the answer arrived just 40 minutes later. As mentioned above, the man pictured has become an instrument of a hate movement. He is innocent. He is neither Jens R. nor involved in any other way.

We were then able to get in touch with the young man very quickly, who, by the way, had no idea until this afternoon around 2 p.m. that a photo of him would be distributed thousands of times in this context. The photos caught him off guard and he now has to come to terms with the situation.

But one thing should be clear: those involved cannot get out of the situation so easily!

How it goes on?

The screenshots have been taken. As in the case of Anas Modamani, the legal situation in this situation is also quite clear: whoever distributed this photo has committed a criminal offense. There is at least one omission in there.

You probably won't be able to force Facebook to delete it proactively, but Facebook will have to comply with every complaint reported as soon as it is clear that this image and its claim can no longer be distributed. At this point, the NetzDG should then take action and put Facebook under pressure, to the benefit of the innocently denounced man. Rightly so.

And now?

I'm disgusted. Disgusted again. Just like back then, when someone was labeled an assassin simply because of their appearance. Disgusted by so much hate. Disgusted by people who kill other people. Disgusted by people who judge other people based on their appearance. Disgusted. But I will never give up because of something like this.


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )