Germany has uncovered a significant pro-Russia disinformation campaign using thousands of fake accounts on X to try to stir anger at Berlin’s support for Ukraine, a media report has said.
The revelations, first reported in Der Spiegel, come amid growing concern about the impact increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns could have on elections.
Experts commissioned by the German foreign ministry used specialised software to monitor posts on the online platform X, formerly known as Twitter, between 20 December and 20 January, Der Spiegel wrote.
They reportedly stumbled across more than 50,000 fake user accounts that together pumped out more than a million German-language tweets.
A common theme was the accusation that Olaf Scholz’s government was neglecting Germans in favour of helping Ukraine in its war against Russia, according to Spiegel, which said it had seen excerpts of the analysis.
The accounts also often linked to fake news stories on websites designed to resemble those of genuine media outlets, Spiegel said, leading analysts to connect it to the Russia-linked “doppelganger” campaign already known to authorities.
The discoveries come at a time of increasing concerns about the effect that sophisticated disinformation campaigns could have on elections. Three regional elections are taking place this year in eastern Germany, where the far-right AfD party is riding high in the polls.
In June, 400 million people across the European Union will be eligible to vote in the European parliament election.
Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said this week that 2024 would be a critical year for fighting disinformation from Russia and elsewhere. Elections would become “the prime target for malign foreign actors”, he said.
The World Economic Forum has ranked disinformation as its No 1 threat over the next two years.
