Pictures can lie. Wilsberg's best buddy Ekki (Oliver Korittke) has to have this painful experience right at the beginning of this episode of the Münster crime thriller "Wilsberg" (Wednesday, 8:15 p.m., ZDFneo) that deals with cyberbullying, internet hate speech and fake news.
He was just joking with the book antiquarian and private investigator (Leonard Lansink) at the weekly market about a banquet of caviar and champagne when the tax official was violently attacked by a man who saw himself being ruined by the tax authorities. A fight ensues - in front of the cell phones of the passers-by. A video that gives the impression that Ekki, who only puts up a fight, is a violent mob against the weak in society, is spreading wildly on the Internet.
Evil lurks on the internet
The incident catapults private detective Wilsberg into a case teeming with slander and campaigning in the episode "Alles Lüge" (2020). The victims are those who mean well. Evil, on the other hand, lurks on the Internet, where a portal sells conspiracy ideas and clumsy inventions as supposed truths. After the lie, it is jealousy that plays an important role in this rather simple crime plot.
The portal's campaign of lies also targets doctor Britta Lüders (Brigitte Zeh) - a doctor with helper syndrome who lets the homeless live with her and wants to help junkies get out of addiction. One of her ex-patients has now apparently turned against her. With fictional and spiteful stories, he launched a campaign against the doctor online that seems to have become a sure-fire success. Wilsberg doesn't take long to ask the pretty and likeable doctor for help. But when he wants to confront the man, he lies dead on his desk.
Wilsberg, on his search for a murderer and for the truth, then encounters a number of suspects: There is the irascible homeless man Paul Schlächter, who cannot bear it when bad things are said about the doctor he admires. But there is also the sleazy initiator of the pseudo disclosure portal Beiderbeke (Andreas Pietschmann). And do his two employees - one simply stupid, the other clever - have something to hide? And who pulls the strings?
The topic of internet hate has potential. But the "Wilsberg" makers remain on the surface and sketch the mechanisms rather template-like. For example, it is rather unbelievable that a horde of passers-by filming cellphone videos ambush the characters every time they make a wrong step, and who immediately pass their pictures into the hands of "Beiderbeke News".
You can reliably rely on the entertainment value of the popular characters: As usual, police officer Overbeck (Roland Jankowsky) makes a fool of himself - this time in front of the entire World Wide Web. In a mixture of disappointed cop and angry citizen, he is the influencer "Ovinator" and gets intoxicated by likes and clicks.
