Racist comments – Hate speech on the internet is mainly spread in online media – News

  • The federal reporting platform for racist hate speech on the Internet registered 163 such statements in the first year of its existence.
  • Most of the comments were directed against black people or generally xenophobic.
  • In eight clear cases related to Switzerland, she reports them.

Hate speech was most commonly found in comment columns in online media or on Facebook, like the Federal Commission against Racism (EKR).. Almost a quarter (38 cases) of the hate comments were criminally relevant.

Reporting platform for online racist hate speech


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The reporting platform has been in operation as a pilot project of the Federal Commission against Racism (FCR) since November 30, 2021 and is easily accessible. It offers the population as well as professionals and organizations the opportunity to view racist content on the Internet with just a few clicks www.reportonlineracism.ch report and seek advice, if desired.

The reports are stored in a database and evaluated by the EKR. Reported content that constitutes racial discrimination within the meaning of Article 261 of the Criminal Code can trigger criminal charges.

The reporting platform Reportonlineracism.ch filed criminal charges in eight cases. The others had no connection to Switzerland, had already been deleted, or were crimes that only the attacked themselves could report. An example of this is defamation.

Mostly general racist comments

In the period up to the end of November 2022, users reported the most xenophobic content that was not aimed at a specific origin or religion. A total of 39 were found in this category.

The second most common 38 racist hate comments were directed at black people. There were 21 reports in the “Hatred towards people seeking asylum or refugees” category.

The platform received 23 reports of anti-Semitic content. Reports related to anti-Semitism are reported according to the reporting platform automatically forwarded to the Swiss Federation of Israelite Communities (SIG), the Foundation against Racism and Antisemitism (GRA) and the Coordination Intercommunautaire contre l’Antisémitisme et la Diffamation (CICAD).

There is rushing, especially in online media

By far the most frequent, with 59 reports, were people with racist attitudes letting their hatred run free in online media and their comment columns. This was followed by Facebook (41 cases) and Twitter (23 cases). There were further reports from blogs, forums and other websites. Hardly any reports came from Instagram, Youtube or Tiktok.

The EKR describes the reporting platform as an important tool for making racism visible on the Internet. The numbers show that online hate speech is a serious problem. The Commission is continuing the pilot project, which was originally planned to run for one year.

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