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Voters in Germany are being exposed to copious far-right narratives online from AI-generated content and Russian disinformation campaigns.
Experts monitoring social media say Russian-based groups are involved, including “Doppelganger” and “Storm-1516”, which US officials found to be active in America’s election last year.
Some of these campaigns are using artificial intelligence to spread their messaging ahead of Sunday’s vote, which will see Germany elect a new Bundestag.
Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) has been more active on social media than other parties during the campaign and is in second place in opinion polls.
Methods are said to include creating fake TV news stories or deep-fake videos of apparent “witnesses” or “whistle blowers” fabricating stories about prominent politicians.
For example, in November 2024, shortly before the snap election was called, a video was published that claimed one parliamentary member who is an outspoken supporter of Ukraine was a Russian spy.
Dr Marcus Faber, a member of the Free Democratic Party and head of the government’s defence committee, was targeted in a video which used AI to suggest a former adviser was making the claim. We asked Dr Faber for his reaction to the video but he was unable to comment at this time.
In another video an 18-year-old woman accused a German minister of child abuse – the accusation was false, and the video was made using AI.
A recent report from the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy, or CeMAS, a non-profit thinktank specialising in the analysis of disinformation and right-wing extremism, and Alliance 4 Europe which aims to combat digital disinformation, has linked both stories to the Russian disinformation campaign Storm-1516.
The researchers have also been tracking the Doppelganger campaign, run by a Russian PR company Social Design Agency, widely reported to have links to the Kremlin.
They have found the group’s main tactic is to create…
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