Federal elections will be held in Germany in September 2021 and new members of the Bundestag will appoint a new chancellor. Less than a month after the election of the new government in Germany, disinformation about the upcoming elections continues to circulate on German social media, finding space mainly on conservative sites.
In detail: while the Green Party continues to be the main target of the disinformation campaign, the recent floods in Germany have ushered in new narratives of electoral disinformation on alleged wrongdoing during the disasters, including claims that the floods were entirely orchestrated for political reasons. This latest strain of disinformation has been accompanied by an increase in the publication of false claims against the candidate chancellor of the Christian Democratic Union party, Armin Laschet. In the new Electoral Misinformation Monitoring Center in Germany, NewsGuard has identified five false claims on the floods, four of which concern Laschet.
NewsGuard also identified 16 false claims and absolutely made-up quotes concerning the Green Party and its exponents, published on various sites, including Russian propaganda sites. A June 2021 report from the Ministry of the Interior of the German federation, which was first mentioned by the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, refers precisely to a Russian propaganda operation against the candidate of the Greens, Annalena Baerbock. NewsGuard also identified 12 false claims about the Union’s parties (including the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, CDU and CSU) and six about the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). So far, NewsGuard has not found any false claims about the left-wing Left party, the center-right Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) or the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The floods they have hit the western areas of the country in July 2021 they have become a catalyst for electoral misinformation, mostly published on right-wing websites.
- For example, the anonymous site N23.tv ? – who deals with various issues, including German politics and health, who has published misinformation about COVID-19 and is considered unreliable by NewsGuard because it “heavily violates fundamental journalistic standards”? – in July promoted the false claim that the floods in Germany had been deliberately orchestrated to influence polls before the elections.
- In an article from July 2021 the site wrote: “Perhaps this was a planned catastrophe, a so-called ‘tipping point’ designed to influence polls shortly before the Bundestag election.. In the days following the floods, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), candidate for German Chancellery Armin Laschet (CDU) and a few others tried to use the disaster to present themselves as saviors. But this was clearly a failure ”. The article also reads: “obvious anomalies … strongly suggest that the flooding of entire localities and regions was deliberate and perhaps even intentionally forced “.
- The article reached over 60,000 users on Facebook, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned social media monitoring tool.
- There is no evidence in support of the claim that the floods were somehow orchestrated for political reasons. Scientists have attributed the floods to heavy rainfall, possibly caused or accelerated by climate change.
- Likewise, the site of the Austrian right-wing weekly Weekly view, considered unreliable by NewsGuard, spread the false claim that federal government aid to people affected by the floods was “so paltry” because in 2014 the government decided to move money from the flood relief fund to the one to support of refugees. In an article from July 2021, the site stated that “As early as 2014 [il quotidiano nazionale] Süddeutsche Zeitung headlined: ‘Government will use money that was allocated to flood aid for refugees’ – money that was paid into the flood fund and was not used should have become refugee aid, according to the newspaper”.
- In fact, the funds for the reconstruction after the floods of 2013 they have nothing to do with current flood relief and the federal government did not decide in 2014 to use flood fund money for refugees.
- This statement was also promoted by the right-wing influencer “Neverforgetniki”, whose posts got over 4,000 likes in total on Facebook come on Twitter, according to CrowdTangle.
Russian propaganda sites and right-wing sites continue to promote false information targeting the Green Party, particularly the candidate for the party chancellery, Annalena Baerbock. The main narratives include the claim that Baerbock would be a “puppet” in the hands of Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, and US Democrat George Soros. Schwab and Soros are often referred to on such sites as “the financial elite”.
- The right-wing anti-immigration site FreieWelt.net, considered unreliable by NewsGuard, has targeted the Green Party with artcioli such as “Annalena Baerbock is the darling of the globalists”. This article from April 2021 was shared on the FreieWelt.net Facebook page, which at the end of June 2021 had approximately 25,000 followers. Referring to Baerbock, the article argued: “As a member of Klaus Schwab’s team he is the ideal puppet to terrorize Germany with globalist interests”.
- The site is owned by a Berlin non-profit company founded by Beatrix von Storch, the federal spokesperson for Germany’s leading far-right AfD party. The site is currently run by her husband Sven von Storch.
- The same article included a tweet of April 2021 stating, “I congratulate George Soros on his candidacy for chancellor” with a photo of Baerbock and Soros at the Munich Security Conference in February 2019, originally posted by Baerbock on his Instagram account.
- There is no evidence that Annalena Baerbock or her party are under the direct control of Klaus Schwab or George Soros.
False information about the Green Party appeared also in an opinion article from June 2021 its DE.RT.com, a site owned by the Russian government deemed unreliable by NewsGuard, which it has remitted a hoax in circulation, already proven false, according to which Baerbock has no university degree and lied about his qualifications in the curriculum. DE.RT.com states that Baerbock’s resume “is about as authentic as Hitler’s diaries.” This is a reference to a German media scandal: in 1983, Stern magazine had purchased for 9.3 million German marks, or 3.7 million dollars, a set of 60 volumes of diaries that were thought to belong to Adolf HItler. These volumes later turned out to be counterfeit.
- This article was shared on the DE.RT.com Facebook page, followed by approximately 518,000 users according to data at the end of June 2021.
- A variant of this false claim has also popped up on the far-right site AnonymousNews.ru, considered unreliable by NewsGuard and registered through a domain registration service based in Moscow. In an article from May 2021 it is read: “Scandal in the Green Party: did the candidate for chancellery Baerbock buy her university degrees?”. This article was shared on the AnonymousNews.ru Facebook page, according to data at the end of June 2021 followed by about 30,000 users.
Why should we care: A few weeks before the elections, the political climate in Germany is tense. Since the start of the pandemic, Germany has seen an increase in the number of demonstrations, and in 2020 it was the country that has shown greater resistance to the measures implemented by the government to counter the spread of the coronavirus, as reported by numerous media. While these protests found support from citizens across the German ideological and political spectrum, they were fueled predominantly by misinformation about virus containment measures, use of face masks, vaccine safety and other COVID-19 related issues. , published by right-wing sites. This phenomenon could occur again as the German federal elections approach.
- The attempt of right-wing protesters in August 2020’s storm the Reichstag, the building where the German parliament resides, set a worrying precedent. France, whose presidential elections are scheduled for April 2022, is one of the many European countries that will follow with concern the succession of events in Germany in the months to come.
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