MiND Nederland becomes Meld.Online Discriminatie

MiND Nederland becomes Meld.Online Discrimination

Name change

As of today, MiND the Netherlands, the official hotline for fighting discrimination on the internet, has a new name: Meld.Online Discriminatie (Report.Online Discrimination). This new name is easier to recognise and at the same time, is a call to report online discrimination.

The name change is part of a repositioning mission, which considered sustainable employability. Spokesman Mitchell van de Velde: “The new name in combination with an updated corporate identity should reinforce our position with both our partners and our (potential) reporters. MiND, i.e., Hotline for Internet Discrimination, proved to be insufficiently known to the general public. This new name and image contribute to raising awareness of who we are, what we do and what we can accomplish. At the core of this campaign is our new slogan: ‘Houd het net voor iedereen’ (‘Keep the net for everyone’, with ‘net’ having the double meaning of ‘the (inter)net’ and also ‘neat/clean/safe’). It remains important that the online environment stays accessible for everyone, without online group discrimination on whichever grounds.”

Prosecutable content
The hotline was founded in 2013, at the initiative of the Ministry of Justice and Security. Every year, the hotline receives hundreds of reports about (alleged) online group discrimination on the grounds of e.g., origin, religion, antisemitism, sexual orientation or disability. These reports are tested against criminal law and the relevant jurisprudence. If there is a case of potential criminal discrimination, the hotline lodges a removal request with the platform that is hosting the content. Every year, this results in the removal of a great deal of messaging. In this way, we ‘keep the net (neat and clean) for everyone’.