The German far-right’s digital push: Analysing the AfD’s campaign in Saxony and Thuringia
16 September 2024
The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) consolidated its support in the recent state elections in Saxony and Thuringia. While in Saxony, the party came in second by a small margin, the AfD secured the lead in Thuringia. This result is particularly significant, given that the respective state chapters of the AfD have been officially classified as “extremist right-wing” in both states.
In this report, we examine the digital communication of the respective state chapters of the AfD[1] prior to the elections on the topics of migration and the conflict between Israel and Hamas. This analysis focuses on the digital landscape of the elections in the context of new online regulations, while also assessing how international conflicts shaped the AfD’s campaign.
Key Findings
ISD collected 19,999 posts between 1 May and 1 September data across Facebook, X and Telegram. Accounts identified in this research consisted of AfD candidates accounts, and both local and regional branches of the party in Saxony and Thuringia. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we found that:
- Mainstream platforms like Facebook and X hosted more AfD content and communication than Telegram, despite the latter’s association with the far-right.
- The topics most referenced in AfD communication were migration, the war in Ukraine and anti-federal-government narratives. While the Israel-Hamas conflict was mentioned occasionally, it did not appear to be a focus for AfD messaging in the lead-up to the vote.
- The keyword “remigration” – alluding to the expulsion of the foreign-born population and second (or third) generation immigrants – was one of the most used keywords around the migration issue, particularly shortly after the knife attacks in Mannheim and Solingen.
- The party also adopted extreme language towards migrants outside the context of recent stabbing incidents in Germany and incorporated this language into their election slogans.
Presence on platforms
On a federal level, the AfD has a strong online presence, using both official party and individual candidate accounts to share their political messaging. The party also benefits from support from far-right influencers and conspiracy theorists who promote the party directly or indirectly on social media platforms. We identified accounts belonging to AfD candidates, and both local and regional branches of the party, to better understand how the AfD campaigned for state elections in Thuringia and Saxony on X, Facebook and Telegram.
ISD identified a total of 131 accounts: 64 in Saxony and 67 in Thuringia. Despite having fewer MPs and thus less candidates on the list (Thuringia 90 MPs, Saxony 119 MPs), the Thuringian party branch and candidates showed an overall stronger presence (i.e. greater volume of accounts) on social media.
Figure 1: Number of identified AfD accounts on selected platforms in Saxony and Thuringia.
When broken down by platform, most AfD accounts were found on Facebook (75 in total), with more accounts identified in Thuringia (43) than in Saxony (32). More accounts from Saxony have been identified on X and Telegram. For X, 27 accounts were identified in Saxony and 20 in Thuringia. Telegram had the fewest accounts, with only five in Saxony and four in Thuringia, making nine in total.
Although Telegram is often associated with far-right actors, AfD candidates in regional elections appear to be less active on this platform. This aligns with findings of ISD’s most recent analysis of AfD’s social media activity, which highlights that the most significant and active accounts associated with the AfD are on Facebook. This also highlights the AfD’s apparent preference for using mainstream platforms like Facebook and X, possibly because of the larger audiences they may attract. In comparison, Freie Sachsen, which is another far-right party shows a different trend. This party is more active on Telegram, where 10 accounts were identified, while only four accounts were found on X and no accounts found on Facebook.
The number of accounts alone does not provide the full picture of online presence as inactive accounts of candidates were found. The data for the number of posts (Figure 2) divided by platform show that the AfD candidates posted on X and Facebook a similar number of times. On X, however, ISD collected 10,420 posts between 1 May and 1 September. These posts were shared by 38 accounts, but 3,339 of them came from just one AfD candidate in Saxony, highlighting a significant imbalance among AfD accounts on X.
Figure 2: Number of collected posts for each platform in selected time periods. *given the shutdown of CrowdTangle on 14 August 2024, the research team was able to collect data for Facebook only between 1 May 2024 and 13 August 2024.
Due to Meta’s decision to shut down its ‘public insights tool’, CrowdTangle, earlier this summer, data collection for Facebook was limited to the period between May 1 and August 13 and therefore excludes the last two weeks of the election campaign. During this time, ISD gathered 7,203 posts, with the most active page of an AfD candidate in Saxony contributing 455 posts. When applying the same date range to X, 8,301 posts were collected, which is almost 1,100 more posts than on Facebook. Despite the overall higher number of posts on X, the disproportion in the number of accounts suggests that Facebook played a more central role for AfD content ahead of the Saxon and Thuringian elections than X.
Telegram has long been a stronghold for various German far-right groups, including extremists, Reichsbürger, conspiracy theorists, and far-right parties. However, the findings of this report suggest that, at the regional level, Telegram plays a less significant role for the AfD compared to its national presence.
Wedge issues targeted by the AfD in Saxony and Thuringia
In the Thuringian and Saxon elections, the AfD focused on both international and domestic issues. In regards to international politics, the party’s attention was almost entirely on the war between Russia and Ukraine. Representatives of the AfD either promoted the “warmonger” narrative against the federal government and criticised them for supporting Ukraine. The conflict between Israel and Hamas, by comparison, was mentioned only sporadically. This conflict carries different implications for the AfD than the war in Ukraine. Generally, the AfD on both federal and state level avoids taking a firm stance when it comes to this conflict, dissimilar to its clear communication on the war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, also the Israel-Hamas conflict is used as a means to criticise the federal government, for example for spreading false information about the conflict.
On domestic issues, data from this research shows that migration was a dominant theme in the most popular posts on Facebook. Analysis from X also indicates that migration and internal security were frequently addressed in AfD content. Two deadly stabbing attacks over recent months additionally fuelled the party’s broader anti-migration narrative, with candidates using keywords like “Mannheim” (137 mentions) and “Solingen” (137 mentions), the two cities where these terrorist acts were perpetrated by rejected asylum seekers. Also, “remigration”, a term that originated with the far-right Identitarian Movement, was widely used (176 mentions). This contributes to the negative sentiment towards migrants in the German online discourse as highlighted in another ISD analysis on the German online discourse towards migrants and asylum seekers. An investigation by Correctiv earlier this year revealed that AfD politicians secretly met in Potsdam with other figures from the German and Austrian far-right scene, including representatives from the Identitarian Movement, to discuss “remigration”, sparking demonstrations against far-right extremism in Germany.
In fact, analysis of the keyword “remigration” on X shows two peaks (see figure 1), each with 19 posts from AfD candidates, occurring at the end of May (Peak A) and mid-June (Peak B). The peak in May appears to have been triggered by the first knife attack in which a police officer was killed in Mannheim.
During the first peak, the AfD was pushing for “remigration” as their solution, and also frequently posted about “Stolzmonat” [Pride Month], a far-right campaign against LGBTQ+ Pride month, during which users used a frame in German flag colours on their profile pictures. The second peak occurred immediately after a video of a physical attack against a 14-year-old boy in the Thuringian city of Gera was shared on the internet. In contrast, the attack in Solingen shortly before the election, which was widely discussed in the entire country, only produced a smaller peak of 14 posts, according to data from Brandwatch.
Figure 3: Volume over time of the term “remigration” under Saxon and Thuringian accounts on X.
AfD candidates in Thuringia and Saxony also incorporated the term “remigration” into their respective campaigns and applied it to slogans such as “Sommer, Sonne, Remigration” (in English: summer, sun, remigration). A post by Björn Höcke, head of the Thuringian AfD, used this slogan in a Facebook post that garnered over 1,500 likes, and similar posts by other AfD candidates in Thuringia received comparable engagement on X. Given the term’s origins in the Identarian Movement, this indicates the extremist language is further normalised and pushed to the political centre.
Figure 4: Examples of posts on X and Facebook mentioning the term “remigration”, with one also mentioning the “Stolzmonat”.
Platforms need to better understand the systemic risks posed by the mainstreaming of extremist language
The results of this analysis point to an increased use of large social media platforms by a far-right party for state elections. This is important in the context of online platform regulation. Platforms like Facebook and X are subject to stricter regulation than Telegram within the EU, particularly under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA requires very large online platforms (VLOPs) to mitigate systemic risks, including those affecting elections and public discourse.
The use of terms like “remigration”, that have origins in right-wing extremist ideology, contributes to the further normalisation of such language. Major social media platforms are used to normalise such language among wider audiences. Therefore, it is crucial that risk assessments conducted by these VLOPs, as required by the DSA, consider wider implications of far-right language and appropriately mitigate these risks. Content moderation systems must integrate more nuanced approaches to extremist language by capacity building on new trends and developments in online extremism.
The elections in Thuringia and Saxony were the first two of three regional elections in Germany in September 2024, with the next set to take place in Brandenburg on September 22. Based on the findings of this research, it is likely that immigration and the war in Ukraine will continue to be the core focus for the upcoming Brandenburg elections. While the Israel-Hamas conflict did not appear to be a focal point of the AfD’s campaign in Saxony and Thuringia, social media platforms will still need to stay alert to incitement to violence and hate that could arise from the weaponisation of international conflicts.
Polls indicate that the AfD could also win in Brandenburg, further consolidating its position. Given the upcoming 2025 federal elections and overall development it remains crucial for the civil society, regulators and social media platforms to observe and address the issue of mainstreaming of extremist language.
End notes
[1] In this article, when speaking about the AfD, we refer to AfD Saxony and AfD Thuringia unless otherwise explicitly stated otherwise.
The sole responsibility for any content supported by the European Media and Information Fund lies with the author(s) and it may not necessarily reflect the positions of the EMIF and the Fund Partners, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute.
