Hate speech in social media is on the rise. Right-wing extremists especially are using the anonymity of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to express xenophobic views and racism without restraint. They only have one goal: to spread hatred, fear and intolerance amongst other users. The immense reach influencers have on the various social media platforms opens broad, accessible and free media channels for every follower. These channels are regularly abused by many right-wing extremists and used to spread their hatred. Together with our client “Loud against Nazis” we wanted to create awareness and take a stand against such abuse.

In 2018, at the peak of social media hatred, over 100 influencers took a stand for their values. They sacrificed their most important currency: their followers. They asked followers with a right-wing extremist mindset to unfollow them by creating posts via unfollowme.org. The social web got inspired and more than 40,000 posts were published with #unfollowme on mobile platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. The reaction: tens of thousands of people unfollowed and a much-needed public debate about values in social media was sparked. Then something surprising happened: the influencers gained 3 times as many new followers.

Social media has increasingly become a breeding ground for hate speech. Especially the wide-reaching social media platforms of influencers can be easily hijacked and abused as free media channels where hatred can be spread freely and almost anonymously. #unfollowme was aimed at showing that social media has its boundaries as they exist real life. Hatred and racism should be a no-go. Our key message: “#unfollowme if you don’t share my values and only spread hatred”. Each participating influencer was asked to share a statement regarding #unfollowme via our website unfollowme.org. Their communities joined in and spread the word, creating huge viral buzz and making #unfollowme a trending topic in German media. As most of the participating influencers come from Germany, #unfollowme is a national campaign. Our audience is everyone who follows our influencers on social media as well as everyone who has been reached through press coverage so far.

On 8th November 2018 there were preliminary reports about #unfollowme on national TV. The campaign started officially one day later on 9th November 2018. This date is also the memorial day for Kristallnacht, the pogrom in which Nazis burned down Jewish synagogues and murdered hundreds of Jewish people. This date was chosen intentionally to launch the campaign in order to strengthen the impact of #unfollowme. Each participating influencer was asked to share a statement regarding #unfollowme via our website unfollowme.org. The influencers could choose between 14 different statements against hate speech, racism, xenophobia and discrimination. In the beginning there were 100 influencers posting and sharing their #unfollowme statements. Their communities joined in and a movement was created, which started on mobile phones. On 9th November 2018 and the following days, Germany’s main social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were flooded with #unfollowme posts, making a strong statement against hatred.

There was a huge media interest. Print and online press, online TV, traditional TV magazines as well as radio stations throughout Germany broadcasted reports and shared them on social media. The predominant message: “Losing followers means losing success for influencers. This makes their message even stronger.“ Total reach: 209 million, equivalent to a Euro media value of 5.9 million.

With the help of influencers, #unfollowme became a top trending hashtag in Germany for two weeks and achieved 14.7 million Twitter impressions. There were 7.91 million Instagram impressions, 1.7 million views of the campaign video, 684,286 interactions on Facebook and 553,090 unique visits to unfollowme.org.

The number of total impressions was +234 million.

A public debate about values in social media was sparked with some very harsh and hateful comments from right-wing extremists. But the influencers gained 3 times as many new followers compared to the ones they lost through #unfollowme.