Last week, Stephen Protzka, a member of the German far-right parliamentary parliament, went to Facebook and telegrams to share sensational stories. The country's Green Party claimed it had recruited immigrants to set the terrorist attacks and was conspiring with the Ukrainian government to blame his party.
As intended, this post infuriated Protschka's followers. “People wake up,” one of them replied on Facebook. “This is a criminal.”
In fact, this article was part of a Russian disinformation torrent that overflowed Europe's biggest economic and diplomatic forces ahead of the federal election on February 23rd.
As votes approach, the Russian influence campaign spread wild claims about playing on the basis of sexual, financial, criminal scandals involving German politicians, and social and political tensions that divided the country. Ta.
The claims appear in fake news outlets and videos that have been altered by artificial intelligence. They were spread by an army of bot accounts on social media platforms such as X, Facebook, Telegram, and in new developments Bluesky.
According to researchers and the German national intelligence agency, the goal is to undermine trust in mainstream political parties and the media and strengthen the right edge of Germany, led by a German alternative known as the AFD.
The same target is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. His general support for Germany's alternatives on X, the social media network he owns, is consistent with Russia's strategic goal of destabilizing Western democracy and support for Ukraine. It's there.
“We're currently dealing with double fronts,” says Sasha, CEO of the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research institute that released a report on Russia's disinformation campaign on X on Thursday. Havraisek said.
“While the manifestation of the mask and the Kremlin's secret operation, she said, “It is clear from the content that there is mutual reinforcement there.”
Targeting Germany
German elections have become the latest battlefield in Russian influence campaigns. The Kremlin has seen the results of a contest called before schedule after Prime Minister Olaf Scholz's Center-Left Union collapsed later last year, and Russian invaders have shattered the country's defense after three years of war. I hope it could erode Ukraine's European support.
Musk appears to have done little to cut down on his side Russian bots promoting AFD on his platform. Instead, he told a powerful audience of 217 million at X that the party is the nation's last hope.
In January, Musk interviewed Alice Weidel, the party's leading candidate, for 75 minutes on X, the same platform he gave Donald J. Trump when he competed in the office last August. . Attending a party meeting by Videolink last month, he said it has gained support from the Trump administration.
Russian propagandists welcomed the convergence and tried to misuse it. X's post was spread by a bot account run by a Russian influence operation known as Doppelgänger, according to Cemas, an organization tracking German online extremism. X did not answer any questions about Russia's activities.
Fake News Maven
In Germany, Russia employs honed tactics in France, Moldova, Georgia, the United States, and other countries where it recently held elections. It is based in Massachusetts.
One of the key players was former Florida sheriff's aide John Mark Dougan, who was in political asylum and eventually gained citizenship in Moscow. Previously, after building a network of over 160 fake news websites that promoted Kremlin propaganda in the US, UK and France, he is now turning his attention to Germany.
Nine days after the SNAP election was announced on November 12th, Dougan said dozens of fakes were reported by NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, and Correctiv, a German nonprofit news organization. We have started subscribing to a German news site.
By February, the number had grown to 102. Some have exaggerated it as local media in Berlin, Hamburg and other cities, under the guise of national news outlets.
On January 30, one of the sites uploaded a video claiming that Deputy Prime Minister Robert Harbeck had conspired with Ukraine to steal 50 paintings from the Berlin Art Gallery. Another claimed that Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union and the forefront of becoming the next prime minister, was the “person of interest” in the 20-year-old murder.
“The network shows its agility,” said Clement Briens, a recording future analyst.
When Dougan arrived in Moscow, he refused to answer questions about his role, but criticised the current German government as a doll from the US. “We need to trade all their leaders,” he said.
“A normal person's deep fake”
Not all fake videos feature well-known politicians. Another tactic that gains momentum is to change the video that features a normal person.
In January, mental health nurse Natalie Finch created a promotional video on Instagram for a university in the UK. Two weeks later, the video reappeared on Bruski, but this time he was not talking about nursing, but about the mental health of candidates for the German Christian Democratic Union.
The new version was fake and I used artificial intelligence tools to recreate the voice by reading another script in the same video decorated with the university logo. “The video started with something I had to introduce myself, introduce the university and then say very seamlessly and became a video about the German government,” she said in an interview.
This fake was one of several identified by Clemson University's Media Forensic Hub. Others included manipulated audio from several US university presidents and manufactured videos of British police officers claiming to have been warned of terrorist attacks in Germany.
“These are some of the clearest examples of deepfakes used in disinformation I've seen,” said Darren L. Linville, director of the hub, who notified Finch about the manipulated video. I did. “And what's convincing about them is that some of them are deepfakes of ordinary people.”
The impact of Russian campaigns on election outcomes remains uncertain. Researchers say that efforts have not changed voter preferences that much, but the mass of disinformation carefully adjusted to adjust for existing social dissatisfaction certainly becomes public discourse. It's penetrated.
“Russians study the newspapers, print media and television in the target country in a very complex way,” says Brian Liston, a recorded future analyst. “They probably know more about national politics than they often know their own politics.”
Germany's domestic intelligence agency said the amount of disinformation and sophistication exceeded what it had seen before.
“The danger of disinformation campaigns is that they affect voters in their vote decisions,” the Constitutional Protection Bureau said in a statement from the times. “The election itself is also outlawed, which risks it being suspected by the public.”
There are signs that the campaign is intensifying. The 48 accounts traced to Russia on X over the past month have received 2.5 million views. Over the course of January, the number of engagements (likes and stocks) has tripled.
The Russian effort, like Protoschka, is a great benefit when notable politicians and online influencers share false claims that researchers call “false information washing.” I'll receive it.
Musk, who currently plays a massive role in the Trump administration, could be his biggest impact. He calls the Prime Minister a “fool” and the German president a “undemocratic tyrant.” Germany wrote in a major newspaper opinion piece in December that it “squeaks the brink of economic and cultural collapse.”
Musk also amplified German alternative supporters by sharing his post on X. Some of these influencers were marginalized or banned on the platform before Musk took over and revived them. Many people, like 24-year-old vaccine and climate change skeptic Naomi Save, are currently attracting attention by posting content in English.
Musk also amplified Russian propaganda. In October 2023, he shared a meme created as part of an impact campaign run by Social Design Agency, a US-approved Moscow internet company. The internal company documents from the social design institutions seen by CEMAS show that Russians view the material as a victory when it is shared by public figures.
“This is the first German election where both the Kremlin and the powerful figures of the new US administration are trying to influence the process and support the same far-right party,” said CEMAS analyst Julia Smilnova. .
“When people like Musk share stories of Russian propaganda, they ultimately normalize them, boost their scope, and cause more damage than a network of non-accused accounts.” I stated.
