In German-speaking social media, campaigns aimed at sowing doubts about the legitimacy of elections are gaining momentum. With regard to the federal election, the responsible authorities should counteract this with targeted information in order to prevent the democratic process from being destabilized before the federal election.

In the context of the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, an estimated 2.6 million Twitter users alone saw posts with the hashtag #electionfraud within 24 hours of the election. This was also due to Twitter’s recommendation algorithms, which increased the reach of such posts exponentially. In addition to Twitter, disinformation about elections also reached a wide audience in the past two weeks via Facebook, Telegram and Bitchute, as well as via the blogs and newsletters of right-wing influencers such as Roland Tichy, Boris Reitschuster and Oliver Janich.

Distrust of democratic processes and established media makes some voters vulnerable to disinformation about the integrity of the upcoming elections. These issues must therefore be carefully monitored and analyzed in the coming months.Download