Germany’s far-right extremist party – the AfD – has achieved a domineering presence on “social media” – commercial online platforms like Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc. And breaking the digital power of the AfD is an urgent task for all democrats.

Imagine Germany’s Chancellor Herr Scholz, Finance Minister Herr Lindner, and Foreign Minister Frau Baerbock answer the following question, “what can people do who are unhappy with the current government?”, with a video that shows their combined answer, “vote AfD”.

Of course, Germany’s chancellor, vice-chancellor, and foreign minister would never utter these words – as all three belong to democratic parties. Yet, this scenario of a faked online election clip – using artificial intelligence (AI) – was one of the suggestions made by AfD apparatchiks to tempt unsuspecting voters to vote for the AfD.

Worse, the AfD has already posted a total of twenty-four of such “fake clips” in what the AfD calls “a digital advent calendar” – an online platform propaganda trick in the run-up to Christmas.

The AfD’s online propaganda shows the most successful use of AI in party communications ever undertaken in Germany. In fact, Germany’s neo-fascist AfD is the “pioneer” in the use of AI for electoral purposes, for fake news, far-right propaganda and otherwise.  

That the AfD’s manipulative online strategy is leading voters – and the electoral process as a whole – into a destructive and undemocratic direction that includes gaslighting and fake TikTok clips, should hardly be surprising.

Many younger AfD apparatchiks have grown up as “digital natives” – people who are born in the “Age of the Internet” and are accustomed to the Internet. These AfD flunkies prefer to focus on direct communication with the electorate.

As awareness of the success of the AfD’s online strategy started to kick in, there were plenty of media reporting on the AfD’s dominance in online political advertising. Yet, the stratospheric advantage the AfD has achieved over Germany’s democratic parties barely becomes clear through numbers and figures alone.

What complicates this is the fact that the numbers of AfD fans, supporters and online followers alone do not provide concrete information about the actual reach and impact of the AfD’s online propaganda.

On TikTok, for example, an AfD video averaged 435 viewers in 2022 and 2023. By comparison: the videos of Germany’s conservatives (the CDU) averaged at just 90 – this is the second-best result! Yet, it still is way behind the AfD reaching five times as many people.

The most successful TikTok video of the neo-fascist AfD reached a whopping 6.6 million viewers. This propaganda video was entitled “This politics is crazy”.

It contains an excerpt from a speech by the AfD parliamentarian Martin Sichert. His far-right rhetoric is a political propaganda masterpiece. He falsely claimed that an Ukrainian refugee, driving a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, receives more state-financial support in Germany than a single mother.

This is not new. Hitler’s speeches presented an endless number of falsehoods. Yet millions believed the antisemitic nonsense of an Aryan race being threatened by a non-existing ‘worldwide conspiracy of Jews’. None of those twisted conspiracy fantasies ever occurred but millions were killed. As Madeleine Albright once said,

“it is easier to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps

than to kill the ideas that gave them birth”.

To spread its dehumanising ideology, the AfD has become “the” champion of YouTube, TikTok, and so on. Worse, the far-right party also shows manipulative propaganda videos on its own TV channel called “AfD TV”. With this, the AfD reaches the highest number of people among all of Germany’s political parties.

The most successful YouTube videos of the AfD can reach an audience of millions. One of the AfD’s more disturbing propaganda videos, for example, is entitled “The income of politicians – simply UNFAIR!” It received 3.1 million viewers.

In it, the AfD attacks the compensation of democratically elected politicians. The AfD does not attack the rich and super-rich but politicians. Perhaps, the AfD’s goal is to eliminate such compensations so that only the rich can enter the parliament.

The next most popular AfD propaganda video is “The Weidel hammer” by – now officially labelled – “nazi-bitch” Alice Weidel. The video had 2.5 million viewers.

Apart from all this, Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) are also online platforms where the AfD has the highest number of interactions and the highest reach with its unscrupulous self-marketing postings.

Until today, the “online superpower” AfD remains the unchallenged titleholder when it comes to the Internet far outmanoeuvring all other parties. Worse, it holds this title on “all” relevant social media platforms. With its individualised contributions, the AfD is able to address an audience of millions.

From a strategic point of view, the AfD’s dominant presence on TikTok, for example, seems to be of great importance. In Germany’s 2021 election, the AfD only received 6% among first-time voters. The AfD’s overall result was: 12.6%. Since then, the AfD’s TikTok activities have significantly expanded to capture the pool of young voters.

The AfD has done this at all levels: federal, state, and local. This has contributed to better results among young voters. In the former East-Germany state of Saxony, for example, the AfD was supported by 21% of young voters – ahead of the Greens (20%) – the traditional home of Germany’s young voters.

These are some of the most outstanding successes of the AfD’s digital propaganda. Structurally, the electoral victories of Germany’s right-wing populists can largely be attributed to its popularity on social media platforms.

Yet, there is also a strong link between being relevant for online algorithms and displaying the typical characteristics of right-wing populism. This is the point where right-wing sensationalism meets the commercialism of online platforms.

Both attract each other. Right-wing populists deliver emotional, polarised, sensational and provocative contents. These are promptly rewarded by online algorithms creating – almost automatically and definitely “by default” – an extremely high visibility.

In addition to these favourable conditions, there are also several very specific reasons for the success of the AfD on online platforms. In essence, five factors can be identified:

1. Resources:

Firstly, the AfD spends an extremely high level of resources in terms of finance, personnel, and technology on its digital propaganda. The AfD was also the first political party to set up a professional studio for video production on its parliamentarian premises in Berlin.

With this, the AfD has gained a competitive advantage on old (Facebook) and new (TikTok, Telegram) platforms. It also utilises the “first mover” position to systematically communicate its far-right propaganda.

2. Propaganda instead of Information, Debate and Democratic Engagement:

Secondly, the AfD follows a strong self-understanding as a political party of PR. This understanding drives the AfD’s far-right propaganda strategy. In its digital propaganda strategy, the AfD’s plan is to substitute – ideally to eliminate or at least replace – independent journalism.

As one of the AfD’s top-Führers, Alice Weidel, once said, the goal is to make people watch “AfD –not ARD”. ARD is Germany’s most watched public TV channel. Once Germans have moved from independent TV channels to the propaganda channel of the AfD, the AfD is on a winning ticket. Goebbel-style Gleichschaltung of the media – like in Poland or Hungary – would no longer be needed.

True to its right-wing populism, on the AfD’s very own propaganda website “AfD-TV.de”, the AfD announced, Germany’s “old media and old parties distort the truth … therefore, we have launched AfD-TV.de”. In a classical Orwellian twist, the very opposite is true. The AfD has launched AfD-TV to distort the truth. Its goal is a Poland-like and Hungary-like “illiberal” state.

The propaganda strategy of AfD seeks to eliminate the division between party-PR and independent journalism. As with Goebbel’s dictatorship, both are set to become one and the same.

Contrary to the authoritarianism favoured by the AfD, the separation between party-PR and independent journalism is necessary for a democracy to work. Yet, the AfD does not want democracy to work.

3. The AfD’s Counter-Audience:

Thirdly, the strategic prioritisation in online platforms that is pushed by the AfD is supported by the guiding ideas of creating a right-wing counter-public. Inside such a counter-public, AfD politicians present themselves in terms of right-wing aesthetics, style, and appealing formats.

This PR strategy also includes the use of well-known influencers like Albanian AfD lackey Enxhi Selizacharias and supporter of the neo-fascist and deeply racist “Identitarian Movement” Roger Beckamp.

Both are known for using influencer-like propaganda. Beyond that, the AfD also relies on a huge number of young activists and media professionals from Germany’s digital-oriented far-right.

The AfD’s youth organisation is called “Young Alternative”. The JA works in close association with the even more radical “Identitarian Movement” (IM). Both outfits run their own high-reach channels using their very own influencers, i.e. manipulators.

IM and JA are also important cornerstones of the AfD’s right-wing extremist digital networks. These networks have become a kind of “right-wing influencer agencies”. These far-right online networks are able to coordinate political actions, mob violence, far-right rallies and electoral campaigns.

4. Building a new Volksgemeinschaft:

One of the more chilling examples of the success of the AfD’s online strategy was the Germanic-Austrian “Pride Month” campaign of 2023. It was set to build a right-wing extremist alternative to the progressive “Pride Parade”. The AfD’s idea was to counter, attack, and intimidate LGBTQ people. The purpose of this campaign was about building a white-power-style right-wing identity.

The AfD is constructing a far-right collective identity – a new Volksgemeinschaft – merging party ideology with its hallucination of a far-right nationalistic community. This is the AfD’s fourth success factor.

In its Facebook propaganda, for example, a well-designed chauvinistic “we” is constructed. This nationalistic “we” shapes almost 75% of recent posts. A sense of a right-wing community has been developed by the party for a socio-cultural and racial homogeneity built on history, race, and tradition.

5. The AfD as a Digital Propaganda Party:

As for the fifth propaganda strategy, negative emotions like fear, anger, indignation and resentment as well as “positive” (!) aspects like racial/white superiority are conjured up. Key to much of this is the AfD’s success in what is known as “message transfer”.

This means that the AfD’s propaganda talks inside Germany’s parliament are seamlessly being transferred to its online platforms. In other words, AfD politicians deliver pre-planned “platform-compliant” speeches in Germany’s parliament. These speeches and shouting matches are not designed for democratic engagement. They are designed for far-right propaganda.

Key parts of AfD speeches are deliberately and purposefully pre-formulated with regards to a statement’s length (60 to 90 seconds) and form (completed, short, pointed, simplifying, emotional and sensational). The format needs to be perfect for short videos to be posted on online platforms.

While Germany’s democratic parties are kept in the belief that the AfD is engaging in open debates, seeks conflict resolution, is interested in finding common ground and favours democratic commitment, the AfD has only one goal in mind: far-right propaganda.

In a subsequent step, these propaganda clips are distributed on its platforms with very eye-catching, pointed, and sensationalised headings. The primary target audience of such AfD speeches is not to be found in Germany’s parliament. Such speeches are designed to generate rage, fear, and resentment. They are made for the party’s “digital rage chambers”.

Fake news, false information, disinformation, images of imagined enemies and the strategy that one’s own party propaganda should replace independent journalism defines AfD’s manipulative hype.

While other political parties are democratic parties, the AfD is a “digital propaganda party”. One set of political parties works in the framework of democracy. The neo-fascist parties work in the framework of far-right propaganda.

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Born on the foothills of Castle Frankenstein, Thomas Klikauer (PhD) is the author of 985 publications, including a book on “The AfD”.

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