Overview
- - The Hamburg press chamber, which ruled Thursday, rejected four of five bids by actor Christian Ulmen to block Spiegel’s reporting, in an interim press-law order.
- - Judges said the articles did not claim Ulmen created pornographic deepfakes of Collien Fernandes, yet allowed suspicion reporting that he may have distributed such videos based on a minimum factual basis.
- - Coverage of alleged physical assaults, including a January 2023 incident in a Mallorca apartment, was deemed permissible under Germany’s rules for reporting on suspicions.
- - The court also let Spiegel quote from Ulmen’s emails to his defense, including a line about a “sexual fetish,” finding this sat in the weighable private sphere given public interest in digital sexualized violence.
- - Ulmen won only on a procedural point about a Palma de Mallorca court date, prompting Spiegel to tweak the passage with a transparency note as both sides prepare appeals, while the ruling leaves criminal inquiries and a draft law to criminalize pornographic deepfakes with penalties up to two years still in motion.