Play Fair!

TV magazine taff calls for tolerance on Diversity Day

Strong together: The taff hosts Thore Schölermann, Rebecca Mir, Daniel Aminati, Annemarie Carpendale and Viviane Geppert are the faces of the „Bleib-fair“ campaign. (Photo)

Strong together: The taff hosts Thore Schölermann, Rebecca Mir, Daniel Aminati, Annemarie Carpendale and Viviane Geppert are the faces of the „Bleib-fair“ campaign.

Too fat, too dark, gay — or simply different? The anonymity of the Internet makes posting mean and derogatory remarks quick and easy. And almost everyone has heard of cyberbullying or has experienced how hurtful exclusion can be, whether in real life or on social media. According to the national cyberlife study conducted by German anti-cyberbullying organization “Bündnis gegen Cybermobbing,” 17 percent of German schoolchildren have already been victimized. Students as young as elementary school age already suffer greatly from verbal attacks on the Internet, not infrequently followed by depression. And 19 percent of children and young people surveyed have been the perpetrators in this scenario.

With its “Bleib-fair” (“Play Fair”) campaign, the ProSieben magazine taff set an example for greater tolerance and acceptance by launching a broad-based social experiment. Various applicants were invited to a fictitious job interview. They were told to wait on a couch and were filmed with a hidden camera. Another applicant who was actually working as a decoy with the “Bleib-fair” campaign asked them to translate a Facebook message written in English. The post was deeply insulting to the supposed applicant. What taff wanted to know was how people react to bullying and exclusion. The answer is provided by three moving clips in which the victims of bullying receive heartfelt compassion and support.

The “Bleib-fair” project is part of a series of on- and off-air campaigns launched by ProSiebenSat.1 to mark Diversity Day 2015, a national day of action organized annually by Charta der Vielfalt (Diversity Charter). This initiative aims to advance the recognition, appreciation and inclusion of diversity in the corporate culture of German companies. In signing the Diversity Charter in 2014, ProSiebenSat.1 underscored the Group’s commitment to creating a workplace free from prejudice and exclusion while promoting employee diversity. <