Protest Against Online Abuse in Hamburg
Hello my lovelies,
I was at a protest against digital violence in Hamburg. The protest had been organised in just 6 days after a high-profile case involving German TV host and actress Collien Fernandes became public. English-speaking media are picking up the protests in Germany, so I wanted to give an overview of the "German #MeToo" and my first-hand account.
The Online Abuse of Collien Fernandes
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the case: Collien Fernandes is a German actress and TV host who had been suffering from fake accounts on social media pretending to be her and contacting men in her professional life to start flirtations, send (fake) nudes and videos, and even had phone sex with them. For 10 years, Collien Fernandes didn't know who was behind the fake accounts and even made a documentary about it where she shares that she only found out about the fake accounts when one of her producers, who believed they were having erotic conversations online, made insinuations she didn't understand and eventually showed her his chat with the fake account impersonating her. She first addressed the online abuse publicly in 2023 but it didn't stop. Last week, on 19 March 2026, German polit-magazine Der Spiegel published a piece in which Collien Fernandes reveals that her husband, Christian Ulmen, confessed to be the person behind the decade-long online abuse. She also posted to her Instagram account what he told her: that he had developed a fetish for humiliating her by presenting her to her professional social circle in a way that she would find appalling. That it gave him a feeling of power. He contacted many men, both strangers and acquaintances of Collien Fernandes, and maintained intense online affairs with about 30 of them. He wanted the material he sent to these men to appear as realistic as possible. Christian Ulmen confessed, she says in her Instagram post, because he feared the police would find out after his wife had filed charges against persons unknown on 21 November 2024. The German investigation was closed but since the couple had been living in Spain and hence the crimes had also been comitted in Spain, Collien Fernandes filed charges against her husband on 02 December 2025. The investigation is ongoing.
The Protest in Hamburg
22,000 people showed up to protest digital sexual violence in Hamburg! I'm happy that I was one of them. I had not expected to stay until the end of the event but I did. There were many moving speeches and a few I personally didn't like, but the absolute highlight was Collien Fernandes showing up in person after she had publicly announced she wouldn't be coming due to death threats! "I thought I would be strong," she said, her voice thick with tears. Showing up in public after death threats, wearing a bullet-proof vest because someone might make an attempt on her life, that is unbelievably strong, no matter if you cry on stage or not! Collien, it is unlikely that you will ever read this on my small, niche blog but I stand in awe of your courage ❤
I feel like my sentiment was shared by most if not all protesters, with loud clamours of support coming from the crowd when she entered the stage and while she spoke. To me, it felt like the German #MeToo moment.
The crowd booing at every mention of Germany's Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose public reaction to the allegations against Christian Ulmen by Collien Fernandes had been absolutely atrocious, filled my heart with hope. Friedrich Merz had used Collien's case, that involves a German perpetrator, to further his racist agenda by claiming that it's mostly migrants who commit sexual violence.
The speakers and performers were all women, which seems like a smart decision given the context of the protest. Many of the pieces were about how most women had experienced what Collien Fernandes experienced in some form or other. One especially brave woman spoke of her abuse who is neither a professional speaker, nor a celebrity or media personality in any way. "I've never done this before, so please be kind to me", she started off, telling the crowd of how her husband started beating her. Many others told of their experience of not being believed, of seeing the perpetrators shielded and escape any consequences. One piece of information that stuck with me was that apparently, harder punishments do not discourage perpetrators (a well-known fact) but the likelihood of being caught and facing any kind of consequences does. Most talks called for change and dropped some numbers which may or may not be solid, but did not offer a path of how to get there. But, given the short time frame, maybe they didn't need to be that. I think the emotional impact was the important thing about this event. To offer Collien Fernandes and victims like her visible support and solidarity. To stand in the audience and feel that others want change too.
But What About the Menz?
In my opinion it is always daft to exclude people from your movement. Unless you're a billionaire who can fund their own campaigns and political agendas, our power is in numbers. Why would you exclude anyone who's on your side? It's madness! Some of the speakers in Hamburg acknowledged that. We need everyone who will stand against online abuse of both men and women (and anyone on the gender spectrum) to press for change. The numbers are about 60:40 female to male victims, according to a report by the Federal Criminal Police. We need men who will politically defend us to fight gendered violence. It made me happy to see quite a few men at the protest in Hamburg. It made me happy to listen to a male friend defending trans women to conservative members of our RPG group. I completely get the rage at men who abuse their power, especially after the Epstein files show the power structures very clearly (including women). But we need to stand together with the men who want to support us and condemn this behaviour together. If we exclude men, we get the worst part of the LGBTQ community where everything is about labels and division and rarely about unity. This is how they get us: divide and conquer. Let's not stand divided.
Opening a Door... to Online Surveillance?
Chan-jo Jun, a lawyer specialised in IT legislation, tells German broadcaster BR24 that pornographic deepfakes, AI generated images of apparently real people having sex, are only prosecutable as libel or defamation in Germany. Often, such cases are never prosecuted at all.
A highly visible case like Collien Fernandes' and the resulting protests in Hamburg (22,000 protesters) and Berlin (13,000 protesters) is likely to get things moving. The question is: where?
In a situation like this, when emotions are high and rage is rabid, there will always be those who want to push their surveillance agenda in the name of online safety. Making AI generated images and voices without consent illegal is the right thing to do. Using this as a vehicle to destroy anonymity on the internet is not. Anonymity protects not only perpetrators, it protects everybody, including whistleblowers and marginalised persons. So I will watch these developments like a hawk.
Here's hope that "Germany's #MeToo Moment" has opened the door for real protection online and not for a Trojan Horse of mass surveillance.
Sources
BBC: German outcry over deep fake porn targeting actress prompts bid to change law, 25 March 2026
In German
Instagram Posts by Collien Fernandes
Collien Fernandes posts Christian Ulmen's confession to her on Instagram, 26 March 2026
Collien Fernandes comments on the article by Der Spiegel on her Instagram, 20 March 2026
German Press
Fall Fernandes: Wie Spanien digitale sexuelle Gewalt verfolgt, br.de, 21 March 2026
<--! Unused Collien Fernandes filed charges against her husband in Spain not only because they were living there but also because Spain has actually been a lighthouse in Europe for the protection of women for the past 20 years. On 28 December 2004, Spain passed "Integrated Protection Measures against Gender Violence". Spain also plans to make the non-consensual AI generation of images and the voice of a person illegal.-->
