Germany’s state TV station ZDF has come in for criticism after one of its hosts leaked the identity of a prominent anonymous YouTube personality on air.
On May 9, Jan Böhmermann, host of the late night programme “ZDF Magazin Royale”, presented the result of investigations his programme conducted jointly with Left-Liberal national newspaper Die Zeit into the identity of the person behind the YouTube channel “Clownswelt” (Clown’s World).
Clonswelt, hosted by an anonymous YouTuber using the name Clownie, frequently ridicules left-wing politicians and mainstream media, including Germany’s state broadcasters.
He began publishing videos in 2021, using a cartoon clown as an avatar, and had amassed 227,000 subscribers at the time of the broadcast.
Clownie previously expressed sympathy for the political agenda of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD), and has interviewed a former AfD MP on his programme.
The AfD on one occasion even shared one of his videos on X, claiming it was a good “clarification” of an erroneous claim about the party made in mainstream media.
In his May 9 programme, Böhmermann termed Clownie “a right-wing extremist” and “the Fifth Column of the AfD”, arguing “there is no right to anonymity” for such people.
He then detailed how his researchers from his programme and Die Zeit identified Clownie through a photograph of his torso he posted on Telegram.
This image showed him wearing a golden plectron on a neck chain, leading them to surmise he may perhaps have been a guitar player in a metal band.
They said they then examined photographs of “all German metal bands” before identifying Clownie as “a 29-year-old metal guitarist from a small town in North Rhine-Westphalia by the name of Marc Philipp”.
Böhmermann gave further details on the man’s identity, describing how his team had spoken to the man’s friends and family “who had no idea at all what he was doing” and “were really surprised” by the revelations.
He ended the segment by asking YouTube and Google, “Why can we still see such rightwing extremist shit on your platforms?”
During the broadcast of the ZDF programme, Die Zeit journalists published an article online (and afterwards in print) offering further details on Clownie’s identity and location.
The broadcast caused a storm of criticism from free-speech activists.
Alexander Kissler, a commentator for the news portal Nius, accused the ZDF of breaking Germany’s public broadcasting conventions by using funds from the state television tax to hound people with diverging opinions.
“Everybody has to pay for Böhmermann, even when they find a root canal treatment more entertaining” than watching his programme, Kissler said.
Böhmermann is the ZDF’s highest-paid contributor, receiving annual payments of roughly €700,000 according to a leaked confidential contract.
Kissler criticised Norbert Himmler, the ZDF’s director, for using tax money to pay for Böhmermann’s research, which he called reminiscent of East Germany’s former Communist regime.
The AfD also compared the methods employed by the public broadcaster to tools “in totalitarian systems” in a post on X.
Clownie himself spoke out on the case on his YouTube channel, describing how the journalists had attempted to hound him.
He accused Böhmermann and his ilk of trying to destroy his life instead of countering the arguments he made.
He added, however, “unfortunately I have to disappoint you. My life is pretty great.”
On May 13, the Clownswelt channel had 390,000 subscribers–an increase of over 160,000 compared to before the broadcast.
