Stories of a pre-election state of emergency, police escorts for toddlers and forged ballot papers -- a blizzard of online disinformation has targeted German voters ahead of Sunday's election.
Russia has been the main suspect, and the far-right Alternative for Germany AfD the main beneficiary, says Berlin. On top of all that, Trump ally Elon Musk has weighed in, insulting German political leaders and strongly backing the Moscow-friendly AfD, mainly via his social media platform X.
Pointing directly to Russia at a time of soaring tensions over the Ukraine war, Germany on Friday said it had detected attempts to meddle in the campaign. Security officials had reason to suspect the Kremlin-linked Storm network was behind some of the online campaigns, he told a Berlin news conference. But Kall stressed that "the free electoral process in Germany is guaranteed, and we will continue to promptly refute relevant misinformation".
Some recent posts have played on public fears after a spate of attacks, including a stabbing spree targeting kindergarten toddlers that killed a two-year-old boy, with a year-old Afghan man arrested at the scene. Soon after, a photo began circulating on Facebook of a policewoman walking with a group of small children with the caption: "Kindergarten group needs police protection to go on an outing!
An AfD politician shared the image with a similar claim. Local police later confirmed the image was real but its context had been distorted. The picture was taken during a visit by a kindergarten group to a police station. Many video and image posts have pushed the narrative of a government at pains to suppress the will of the people. One recent false post claimed Chancellor Olaf Scholz had imposed a state of emergency so as to delay Sunday's elections.
