The Presumption of Innocence is a constraint on the State’s power, not a constraint on private thought. So here are my thoughts.

Collien Ulmen-Fernandes has filed criminal complaints in both Germany and Spain against her ex-husband, Christian Ulmen. The core accusation is virtual rape¹. Specifically, she alleges that for over a decade, he created numerous fake profiles in her name on platforms like LinkedIn (really?!) and dating sites. Through these accounts, he is said to have engaged in sexually explicit chats with a lot of men while posing as her. Furthermore, he is accused of distributing pornographic images and videos, partially through deepfake technology, that featured women bearing a striking resemblance to her, intended to be perceived as her private material.

Christian Ulmen, through his legal representation, denies all allegations.

This story is not new. Collien Ulmen-Fernandes has been vocal about being a victim of digital violence and identity theft for years. In early 2024, she even produced a two-part documentary for the ZDF network about deepfakes and the devastating impact of digital sexual violence. In late 2024, she filed a criminal complaint against „persons unknown“ in Berlin. For a long time, she was a voice in the wilderness. The public reaction was one of distant, academic interest in the „risks of the internet.“

Everything changed on March 19, 2026, when a report in Der Spiegel publicly named Christian Ulmen as the accused.

Suddenly, everyone gave a fuck.

That includes a skyrocketing interest in said deepfakes. Google searches for it exploded.

This is not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is how people talk about it. Specifically experts and the general public. I apologize in advance: This is gonna be a longer post.

Innocent until proven guilty – by whom?

Parts of the public were already feeling very intellectual when they posted „innocent until proven guilty“ under a youtube video or in other social media.

Enter the experts. Specifically, enter Udo Vetter, famous for his lawblog, giving an interview to nius (what the actual fuck why does he even talk to them?!). If the first phase of this story was the emotional explosion, the second phase is the cold, legal bucket of water thrown over everyone’s heads.

Vetter did what he always does: he spoke from the fortress of the legal system. He leaned heavily on the Presumption of Innocence, which is a cornerstone of justice in courts and media and society (more to the latter later). In addition, he pointed out that Collien is alleging this has been happening for over a decade, involving hundreds of men and a massive digital footprint. His big question? „Why haven’t any other witnesses („Dritte“) come forward?“

In a legal court, that’s a fair question about the burden of proof.

In the court of public opinion, this is what I would like to call a catastrophic communication failure between systems.

Or shorter: Bullshit.

Not pictured, but still interesting to think about: A commenter in Udo Vetters’ lawblog.
Source: Medium.com

Meant to keep state and media from being tyrants in their own right, this concept is weaponized by experts and commenters alike to freeze a social conversation.

It spurns on the idiots. They use it to play the role of the rational and educated adult in the room. They act as if they are defending the very foundations of civilization, when in reality, they are just using a legal concept they have no deeper understanding of to shut up undesirable opinions or prevent people from forming them in the first place.

I swear they exist. Source: dreamstime.com

What the mob says here is this: „You are not qualified to have an opinion, and your moral compass is legally irrelevant and therefore morally also wrong.“ It treats the public like a tainted jury rather than a society trying to figure out what kind of digital violence it’s willing to tolerate. And they point to the experts to justify this.

Why are experts like this?

Experts play into this willingly or unwillingly. At least they do not reflect enough on their role in this discourse. If they did at least some reflecting, they would not give fucking nius of all places interviews.

But why?

This is the point where it gets frustrating and also a bit complicated.

To understand why experts like Vetter fall into this trap, we have to look at how society is actually built. It isn’t one big, coherent conversation. Rather, it feels like everyone speaks a different language about different interests. I bet you have observed this if you ever read legal German or a letter from your city: Technically it’s German, but you sure as shit do not understand a word.

But you could say it’s actually worse: It’s a collection of separate systems that don’t actually even speak to each other.

This is where Niklas Luhmann comes in.

Luhmann was a German sociologist who realized that modern society is made of specialized systems (Law, Media, Science, Morality, …). Each system is autopoietic, which is a fancy way of saying it’s a closed loop. It only cares about its own internal logic.

Every system runs on a Binary Code. It’s how the system „sees“ the world:

• The Legal System only understands: Legal / Illegal.
• The Moral System only understands: Respect / Disrespect (or simply: Good / Bad).

And on the section between the systems, a catastrophic communication failure happened. What followed was a systemic crash.²

When Udo Vetter speaks, he is 100% correct within the Legal System. In that world, the only thing that matters is the code. Until a judge flips the switch from „legal“ to „illegal,“ the act effectively doesn’t exist.³ For a lawyer, innocent until proven guilty isn’t an a tool to block opinions from being formed. It’s a presumption. Hence the name.

The catastrophic failure happens when an expert tries to export that into the moral system of the public discourse.

When the YouTube mob yells „Innocent until proven guilty!“ at someone expressing empathy for Collien, they are trying to overwrite the Moral Code with the Legal Code. They are telling you that you aren’t allowed to use the „Good / Bad“ filter until the „Legal / Illegal“ filter has finished its five-year gestation process.

Systemic Colonization Says „What?“

In sociological terms, this is a colonization of the public discourse and moral system by the legal system (represented by an expert). The Law is trying to take over territory where it doesn’t belong.

By insisting that the presumption of innocence applies to your brain, these experts are trying to delete your moral autonomy. They want to turn the public square into a sterile courtroom annex where human intuition, empathy, and social patterns („where are the other victims?“) are treated as „illegal“ data.

The experts play into this because they are victims of their own training. They are so deeply embedded in the Legal Code that they’ve lost the ability to „translate“ for the real world. They don’t reflect on their role because, in their mind, they are just stating the truth. They forget that the truth of a courtroom is a very narrow, very specific version of reality and proof.

But this is what the public hears:
Do not use your own brain. Do not form your own opinions. Do not not watch their movies anymore because you find it problematic. Do not discuss this any further in public, because we do not have a sentence by a judge yet. It is dangerous! Wait for (my!!) authority to give you the okay.

I’m niused to it

We also need to look at the venue. Vetter didn’t just give this interview anywhere. He gave it to nius.

I have nothing but disdain for nius. There is no Presumption of Innocence here.

This isn’t a minor detail. When an objective legal expert steps onto a platform that thrives on the narrative of the „oppressed citizen“ fighting a „woke dictatorship,“ they are abandoning neutral ground. They are providing ammunition for the narrative.

In this specific ecosystem, the Presumption of Innocence is no longer a shield meant to protect an individual from the state. Instead, it is weaponized into a sword against societal consensus. Under the logic of nius, anyone who believes Collien Ulmen-Fernandes (or even simply expresses empathy!) is immediately branded as an „enemy of freedom.“ Yet at the same time, those people like to throw 1984 around. And I want to throw up.

Legal expertise, in this context, serves as nothing more than a professional veneer for a deeply ideological dismissal of a victim’s experience. And it works.⁴

Small Recap: Catastrophic Communication Failure Between Systems

Why is this a Catastrophic Communication Failure between Systems?

• Systems: We are talking about two different worlds: The Legal System (Courts/Lawyers) and the Moral System (You/Me/Society).
• Communication: The attempt to send a message across the border of these two worlds.
• Failure: The message arrives as pure noise or in the wrong language with the wrong emphasis.
• Catastrophic: First, it destroys the attempt of understanding each other. Second, there was massive backlash from both sides. Third, it is ripe for abuse by malicious actors.

Academic Hedging and Responsibility

If the lawyers are currently colonizing our moral discourse, where are the people who are supposed to bridge the gap? Where are the sociologists, the communication experts, the people who actually understand how these systems work? Why is the silence from the universities so deafening? Why do most sound so … weak and unconvincing if they speak up?

I strongly believe most academics are currently failing the public. They see this catastrophic communication failure happening, and they choose to stay in their offices. Or if they leave, continue to speak the carefully curated language of their office.

I also strongly believe media as an interface between systems is failing the public. They invite the wrong guests, or do not explain where they are coming from. And they do not translate their language.

How would this look like?

Vetter could say: „This is a public discussion, but in a court room different rules apply. Here they are: …“

Moderators could say: „We invited our three guests. One is an expert in law, the other in social issues, the last in AI and IT.“ and then make them understand each other. Moderate.

Media aside, why do professionals talk like this?

The reason is a professional disease called Hedging.

In the academic world, if you say something directly, you’re a target. To survive a peer review or a faculty meeting, you learn to wrap every statement in three layers of bubble wrap: „Perhaps,“ „Under certain conditions,“ „The data suggests, although further research is required…“

This is correct and professional. At the same time, if you are a prominent professional in public discourse, the eyes of your field of study dont stop watching you.

Being „imprecise“ in the eyes of colleagues is so terrifying to some (or they are so used to talking like that), that they become completely unconvincing to the public.

But your job here is to convince and educate the public. Not by being an expert with big words, but by speaking the language of the public, and talking about what is interesting to them.

And if they dont do it, someone else with nefarious intentions will. And they will use the experts. In this case, it was nius.

The Mirror

I realize the irony here. I am sitting here using Niklas Luhmann to explain why academics are isolated. I am doing exactly what I’m critiquing. I’m using the big words to explain why we shouldn’t use them.

And also, not all academics are like that. But that’s the point. It’s always academics. They refuse to reflect and to use the tools of language not to cross a gap between systems, but for signalling belonging and creating a shut-off community nobody understands anymore.

When I talk about a catastrophic communication failure, I’m not trying to sound smart. Quite the opposite. I’m trying to tell you that you should not sound smart, you should sound empathetic and easily understandable.

Know where you are. Know who you talk to. Know whose language you need to speak.

Vetter should have known that. He is moving in both courts: Legal and public opinion. He must speak both languages.

At the end of the day, Christian Ulmen may remain legally innocent in the eyes of the law. That is the job of the courts in Germany and Spain, and it is a job they should do with the utmost precision. It is a result the public must accept and see as true.

But until then, as educated people, we need to stop hedging and start listening, understanding and translating in public. We also need to admit that the Legal System is currently failing to keep up with the reality of digital violence. We cannot wait for a judge to give us permission to have a moral compass.

Because moral and ethics come before law. And even before that comes communication.

1. For the lack of better words. ↩︎
2. If you want to see this crash in real time, look at funfacts.de segment on Nuhr on youtube. ↩︎
3. For a more disturbing look into that world, look into the blogpost by Vetter on lawblog and the comment secion. I refuse to link the nius interview, but I will link that. It is a masterclass in the „Legal Shush“: self-appointed guardians of the rule of law quibbling over grammar or equating anti-deepfake legislation with North Korean totalitarianism while human identities are being shit on. Morality is just signal noise. Only the technical „purity“ of the legal code matters. What grounds these laws are based on? Who they protect? Who cares. Disgusting, really. ↩︎
4. See above, footnote 3. ↩︎