Case studies | Discover how Borussia Dortmund protects its fans, players and club values on social media.

Freedom2hear + Borussia Dortmund

Discover how Borussia Dortmund protects its fans, players and club values on social media.

Comments moderated

4.2M+

Harmful comments filtered

416k

Harm categories covered

About

Borussia Dortmund is one of Germany's most traditional and best loved football clubs. Founded in 1909, BVB has more than 10 million fans in Germany, over 245,000 club members and a fan base that keeps growing around the world. The club has won eight German titles and five DFB-Pokals.

Challenge

BVB has spent years building one of football's most respected anti-discrimination programmes. Its 'United by Borussia' initiative tackles racism, antisemitism and LGBTIQ+ hostility, and it earned the club UEFA's #EqualGame award. At SIGNAL IDUNA PARK, those values are hard to miss. Holding on to them across social channels followed by millions of fans is a different job. Hate speech and harassment turned up in the comments alongside spam, pornography and illegal broadcast links. A keyword filter was never going to be enough, because so much abuse arrives in coded language that no word list will catch. BVB needed moderation that understood context and intent, removed harm in real time, and left alone the passionate debate that makes football worth talking about.

Solution

BVB partnered with Freedom2hear, the context-aware AI moderation platform, to take its values from the stadium onto its social channels. Freedom2hear's patented Emotion AI reads the full context behind every comment in real time, picking up cultural nuance, coded language and emotional intent across 15 harm categories. Harmful comments are removed automatically. Genuine fan conversation, heated arguments included, stays up. Since deployment, Freedom2hear has moderated more than 4.2 million comments across BVB's social channels and filtered over 416,000 harmful interactions.

"Borussia Dortmund embodies diversity and anti-discrimination on a day-to-day basis. With millions of fans and over 245,000 club members in mind, it goes without saying that we also want to ensure these values are upheld on our digital platforms. Our partnership with Freedom2hear supports our ambition of strengthening the digital space for daily interaction with our global fan community."

Daniel Lörcher

Vice President, Borussia Dortmund

Results

Since the partnership began, hate speech across BVB's channels has fallen significantly. Spam, illegal streaming links and other harmful content are gone from the conversation, so fans can argue about football without wading through abuse first.

The data also shows the club where to focus next. Harassment aimed at individual players is now the most common type of harmful content being filtered, and protecting players is the clear next step as BVB and Freedom2hear keep building their approach. The goal is a digital community that feels like SIGNAL IDUNA PARK: over 81,000 voices, from every background, united by the game.

"What impressed us most wasn't simply Borussia Dortmund's ambition, but the fact that safeguarding is already part of the club's DNA. Their commitment extends far beyond the stadium and into every aspect of the supporter experience. We're proud that our technology has been able to contribute to that vision, helping preserve a digital community where passionate football debate can flourish without abuse."