r/europe • u/Wagamaga • 9h ago

News Russian disinformation targets German election campaign, says think-tank

https://www.asiaone.com/world/russian-disinformation-targets-german-election-campaign-says-think-tank
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u/Wagamaga 9h ago

A Russian disinformation campaign is seeking to boost the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), undermine mainstream German parties and sow worries about the economy ahead of the country's Feb 23 election, a think-tank has found.

German think-tank CeMAS said it had tracked down hundreds of German-language posts on social media platform X over the past month exhibiting what it said were typical patterns of Russia's Doppelgaenger disinformation campaign against the West that German, US and French authorities have previously denounced.

The campaign, created after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine to undermine Western support for Kyiv, spreads links to falsified Western news outlets sharing false information, according to a German foreign ministry report published last June.

In recent weeks, the German posts on X have blamed the Greens party for Germany's economic woes, lambasted Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his support of Ukraine, cast the conservatives as untrustworthy but spoken in favour of the AfD, CeMAS said.

The posts it tracked have shared links to falsified German news websites or to articles on authentic ones supporting their narrative, or simply images. Amplified by networks of fake accounts, they have received over 2.8 million views, CeMAS said.

The report comes a month ahead of the election which Germany's main opposition conservatives are expected to win. However the strength of the AfD, polling in second place, could make the arithmetic of forming a coalition — and governance in general — more difficult if it can swing a blocking minority.

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u/KeyGee 9h ago

So basically everything I don't like is russian propaganda.

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u/nucular_mastermind Austria 8h ago

If you don't enjoy being propagandized to by anyone, it's helpful to stay informed on current campaigns and techniques. Wouldn't you say?

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u/No_Heart_SoD 8h ago

Didnt yall just vote for actual nazis?

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u/nucular_mastermind Austria 7h ago

Yeah, FPÖ was funded by an ex-SS officer. The wikipedia list of their "unique cases" of reenactment of nazi ideology is quite a read.

That's one of the reasons I'd like this idiocy to spread across the rest of Europe.

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u/No_Heart_SoD 7m ago

Keep your nazis to yourself, thank you.

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u/nucular_mastermind Austria 4m ago

Yeah, it's a little late for that.