German elections, what role will social media play?

2024-11-18 09:37:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

After the victory of Donald Trump in the elections in the USA and with the new elections planned in Germany for February 23, questions are being raised about the role that social media can and should play in party campaigns.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party took just over 30% of the vote in the recent regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony, which was partly attributed to the party's effectiveness in reaching first-time voters on TikTok .

Matthias Kettemann, an expert in internet regulation and media law at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, says it's impossible to say exactly what impact social media has on shaping public opinion and democratic decision-making processes.

However, what is clear is that more and more people are using social media and there is a general trend towards polarization. "Far-right and far-left parties tend to be more successful on social media because they have stories that are easier to tell, which drives engagement with the platforms' amplification algorithms," he told DW. .

Observers are also wary of the growing influence of Elon Musk, the world's richest man and owner of Platform X, who was arguably Trump's biggest ally in his successful campaign to reclaim the US presidency.

After the collapse of Germany's ruling coalition on November 6, Elon Musk repeatedly called Germany's center-left leaders "stupid."

Meanwhile, Germany's Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party made a surprise return to the microblogging platform this week after a six-year absence, declaring that he did not think he was leaving the X to "those who they also shout at the populists".

Political debates and not smear campaigns

Jörg Hassler, an expert on digital and political communications at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, believes that "the biggest problem is disinformation from above". According to him, political leaders are now focusing more on personal attacks against their competitors or engaging in debates on secondary issues such as election dates.

During a debate in the Bundestag on Wednesday, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), expressed his disgust at the fake videos created by artificial intelligence that have circulated online and been shared on social media. "The fact that they were posted and forwarded by Social Democratic lawmakers gives a taste of the kind of election campaign that is set to follow here in Germany," Merz said.

"The important issues are how the economy is doing, whether people can benefit from state welfare and so on, but it seems that politicians are not interested in these issues," said Kettemann.

The fight for democracy on TikTok

While campaign tools developed in the US are subject to strict legal and regulatory restrictions in Germany, for example through data protection and party finance laws, social media has become an important part of the hybrid media ecosystem in which information flows between social media and traditional media.

"You can't win elections on social media, but you can lose them," Hassler said. He cited the example of Armin Laschet, the CDU's candidate for chancellor in the 2021 federal election. Laschet's campaign was destroyed after he was filmed laughing during an official visit to the Rhein-Erft District, a region of Germany devastated by extreme flooding in July 2021. Outrage spread on X, then called Twitter, using the hashtag "#laschetlacht" ("#laschetlaugh").

For the first time in 2022, more German citizens said they mainly follow the news online than on television, the Reuters Institute for Journalism Study's annual survey shows.

Russia wants to "deepen" polarization

Another important factor in the upcoming parliamentary elections, Kettemann said, will be the role of foreign actors using disinformation operations, such as bots and "dark campaigns" on messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, to push stories. certain. AfD, Germany's populist party, and the left-wing Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) presented pro-Russian, socially conservative, anti-migration and anti-climate programs.

"We know, for example, that Russia strongly favors some German political parties over others. It wants to exacerbate polarizing trends within German society, and this is a threat we need to be very aware of as we approach the Bundestag elections, Hassler said.

EU tries to regulate social media

The EU has already introduced a comprehensive set of rules for social media and digital markets with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to prevent illegal and harmful online activities and the spread of misinformation.

In preliminary findings published in July, EU regulators found that the X platform violated the DSA, stating that the blue tick verification system "misleads users", that the platform did not respect the "required transparency in terms of advertising" and that " did not allow researchers to access its public records".

According to Kettemann, the challenge now is to implement the legislation, which will not be possible in time for the German parliamentary elections in February. "Some platforms like X seem not to cooperate with EU rules, so it will be very difficult for this platform to be in line with democratic values ??and EU rules," he said. This could be even more difficult going forward as Musk's role is increasingly important in shaping US policy, Kettemann says, after US Vice President-elect JD Vance suggested this week that the US would withdraw its support for NATO. if the EU tried to regulate the X platform.

As more voters, especially young people, learn about politics and world affairs through social media, Ketterman urged traditional parties to increase their activities on social media platforms because they must not leave room for disinformation actors. "We must be the ones who must lead the war," he said./ DW