#Look: a new #outcry is sweeping the net
Twitter users have already posted more than 21,000 messages under this hashtag. With the usual 140 characters, they report on scenes in the office, at the supermarket or at school.
""In germany, people behave in a civilized manner in central europe"" hieb it, when I came once too late in the school", writes for example the user @khaluded. "But you are hubsch for a black", @annoyingmenace got to hear according to her tweet. Other figures of prejudice. And a kolner with turkish roots reports a cancellation: "i call with my name, job unfortunately taken. German friend calls, job still available, appointment also."
All tweets are tagged with the same keyword and thus bundled together. "Some have tweeted who themselves have already been victims of racism or have noticed racism," says freelance journalist kubra gumu?Ay. The 25-year-old developed the idea with other net activists at a blogger meeting in early september.
Particularly interesting found gumu?Ay #schauhin tweets from users describing how they caught themselves making xenophobic noises in everyday life. "Not everyone who makes racist remarks is immediately a racist. Everyone behaves racist sometimes", she says. "It’s okay to have prejudices. But it’s not okay to insist on your prejudices."
Once before, a hashtag action like this caused discussion in germany. After the sexism accusations of a journalist against the FDP politician rainer bruderle had the reactions on twitter at the beginning of the year uberschlagen. Provided with the hashtag #aufschrei users reported sexist remarks in everyday life. #aufschrei even got one of the prestigious grimme online awards.
The dimension of the #aufschrei-debate has gumu?Ay with their net action not yet reached. The communication scientist axel maireder from the university of vienna sees several reasons for this. "We have a lot fewer people affected on twitter," says the expert. On the one hand, there are generally more women in germany than people with an immigrant background. On the other hand, the latter are much less active on twitter.
The #aufschrei wave at the beginning of the year also arose only when the accusations against FDP politician bruderle were already being hotly debated. "The hashtag inventors jumped on a bandwagon, so to speak," explains the network expert. With #aufschrei they had driven the discussion further. The hashtag has now become a fixed term in the network community. Even today, users are still tweeting daily under the keyword.
After thousands of short messages in the first few days, however, the frequency of #schauhin tweets has already dropped noticeably. Researcher maireder believes, however, that the anti-racism hashtag can establish itself on the net. "It’s very important to be able to structure the many discourses that are taking place on twitter and in other networks. If that works for #schauhin, then that’s an achievement in itself that shouldn’t be talked down to."