Commentary:
Digitale Helden bets on peer prestige: teenagers heed advice more readily from slightly older insiders than from harried teachers. The design is elegant – modular, certificate-bearing, gamified – but the pedagogy risks flattening politics into etiquette. Lessons frame so-called hate speech as bad manners rather than as an expression of a political worldview, steering mentors to soothe victims, block offenders and move on. The foundation roster reads like a Who’s Who of respectable philanthropy. Evaluation figures – mentors trained, schools onboard – say nothing about long-term shifts in conflict or credulity. Licence fees keep the non-profit solvent but also tether content to institutional comfort zones; thornier topics such as political disinformation within mainstream outlets rarely surface. Digitale Helden may improve digital hygiene, but its outlook is apolitical and domesticated.