FSM hotline: Complaints about depictions of abuse have quadrupled

30,573 complaints about potentially illegal or youth-endangering internet content were received by the Complaints Office of the Voluntary Self-Regulation Body for Multimedia Service Providers (FSM) in 2023. More than ever before. The number of reports more than doubled compared to 2022, when there were 12,956. 12,918 of the reports related to depictions of sexual abuse of minors. Compared to the previous year, these reports have more than quadrupled, partly because foreign partners have forwarded more reports.

The figures are taken from the hotline's current annual statistics, which are available to heise online and are due to be published on Wednesday. In 74 percent of the cases – out of 22,739 reports –, the complaints were justified complaints about content that actually violated German youth media protection laws after a comprehensive case-by-case examination by lawyers. At 57 percent, depictions of sexual abuse of minors account for the largest proportion of justified complaints. The FSM describes this new record of reported depictions of abuse and the enormous increase within one year as "worrying". There is an urgent need for hotlines to be "reliably supported with public funds from Germany in the future".

The institution also explains the increase with the forwarding of information from other complaints offices via the international hotline network Inhope to relevant materials on German servers. The FSM itself immediately forwards any abusive material stored there to the Federal Criminal Police Office and informs the host provider in line with the principle of deletion instead of blocking. The FSM considers it positive that providers reacted even faster in 2023 than in 2022, despite the sharp increase in the number of cases. It took an average of 1.2 days from reporting to the complaints' office until the content was removed, compared to 1.5 days in the previous year. Overall, the removal rate in Germany is 100%. For content hosted abroad, the rate was 87% four weeks after the first report (2022: 77%).

Percentage of reports on porn less

In 2022, the number of complaints about general pornography that was freely accessible to children and young people without an age verification system (AVS) was in first place. The number of substantiated complaints in this area almost doubled again to 8889 cases, but their share of the total number of reports fell significantly to 39% (2022: 51%). The proportion of reported cases of other content classified as harmful to minors that is not suitable for children and young people of a certain age group has also fallen, from six percent to one percent.

Users reported 120 cases of "hate crime" in 2023, compared to 95 in the previous year. Once again, this mainly involved depictions of symbols of unconstitutional organizations, with an increased share of 80%. In 585 cases (2022: 445 cases), users complained about depictions of extreme violence such as animal pornography, violations of human dignity and the glorification of brutal acts.

The proportion of reported cases in which the investigators were unable to identify any violations fell from 32% to 26% compared to 2022. This generally relates to submissions in which the right to freedom of expression prevailed, youth protection regulations were not violated or content was access-protected or could no longer be found. Here too, the team informs the reporters about the legal situation, refers them to the relevant authorities or suitable help and advice services and provides tips on how to safely configure devices for minors.

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