Authoritarian Strategies Online

Did anti-democratic forces try to influence the outcome of the Bundestag election? CeMAS offers a detailed analysis of the role of disinformation and influence campaigns during the election campaign in the report on digital risks during the 2025 Bundestag election, continuing the findings that CeMAS was able to gain during the monitoring of the 2025 Bundestag election from 15 January 2025 to 23 February 2025.

Illegitimate foreign influence operations: Prior to the federal election, there were at least four Russian influence campaigns aimed at discrediting democratic politicians, supporting the AfD and spreading disinformation about alleged electoral fraud. These disinformation campaigns utilised AI-manipulated videos, fake news sites and coordinated non-authentic accounts to achieve a million-fold reach on social media platforms.

Far-right social media strategies: The AfD used social media platforms to mobilise potential voters, posting approximately 5,700 videos on TikTok and 44,000 posts on X between November 2024 and February 2025.
The AfD used AI-generated images as an election campaign tool, albeit to a lesser extent so far. 6.5 per cent of the images examined in AfD posts on the X platform contained AI-generated elements, which were rarely labelled.

The far-right and conspiracy ideology milieu on Telegram supported the AfD by spreading conspiracy narratives and attacks on the ruling traffic light coalition.

False claims about the integrity of the Bundestag election were seen millions of times: Before and after the election, numerous false and misleading claims about alleged electoral fraud or an alleged planned cancellation of the election in the event of an AfD victory were spread on social media, reaching millions of views.

The report complements the website https://btw2025.cemas.io, which documents ongoing monitoring between 15 January 2025 and 23 February 2025 (in German).