Summary
A poll found that 88% of German voters fear foreign election interference, with Russia (45%), the US (42%), and China (26%) seen as top threats.
Concerns include deepfake disinformation and social media manipulation, with 56% believing Germany is unprepared. Elon Musk, a vocal far-right supporter, has drawn criticism for allegedly influencing German politics.
Voters also worry about the far-right AfD’s aggressive online campaigns. Many (79%) believe populists benefit most from social media.
Meanwhile, 71% support creating a new ministry to combat digital misinformation.
According to the study 37% of participants verify information before sharing it on social media.
There you have it folks.
Disinformation campaigns don’t need to be super convincing with the latest tech or elaborate fake outs, although it certainly helps. For the masses (ie election interference) it’s easy enough to to establish narratives, vibes by users simply sharing headlines to fake or manipulative reports. The people that bother to deep check and cross reference sources you typically couldn’t convince anyway. Sadly enough, most users never read beyond the head lines (75% this Facebook study estimates).
Think of your own feed: how many head lines // posts do you just scroll by w/out ever opening them? Even if you don’t share actively it still can influence the your perception of the world today and shape your mood.
Social media is eating away at the fundamentals of Democracy 🫠, change my mind!
It’s not social media, it’s media.
Social media are somewhat faster, but if you watch TV or read news here in Germany, the discussions there and reality on the have almost zero connection. We’re discussing completely absurd proposals to deport refugees, while most people are much more afraid of their landlords or can’t get a doctor’s appointment.
The media completely fails at questioning power. They’re just repeating what politicians say or demand, knowing that 90% of that is straight up against the constitution.
When fake news as a concept appeared a bit over a decade ago it was all about the traditional media and the lies and narratives they formed in their articles. That same media tried to spin it as about the satire sites like newstrump and most recently their entire spin has been about social media being the cause. I think social media has caught more because its clear to see that some users are spreading a lot of misinformation and you can see others falling into the trap but really what legitimises it all is what the media does and does not platform.
I first heard it on NPR. They were referring to Trump’s lies in the 2016 campaign. Two weeks later his team had co-opted the term and used it as a two word reply to anything going against their narrative.
I’m totally amazed that they pulled that off so well. It’s sad of course, set us down the path to “alternative facts” and is still used as complete dismissal of an argument without even giving it a chance.
That’s been their MO for a long time now. In the runup to the 2000 election, Al Gore’s inarguable main strength was his championing of the Internet, such that “{whatever} superhighway” (derived from his coining of the term “Information Superhighway”) had already become a well-worn joke format. Karl Rove took Gore’s perfectly defensible - and actually 100% true - claim that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet” and through simple repetition turned it into “Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet”, making Gore seem like a crazed person. Which helped Bush Jr. get elected and cemented the GOP’s current control over the Supreme Court.
not gonna change your mind, you’re right.
I think part of the problem is how awful an experience it is to read articles on most websites. I get that they need advertising revenue, but the giant ads plastered all over the articles make the experience of reading them simply awful.