Germany’s federal elections in September 2021 (#BTW21) took place at a time when the electorate was more active online than ever before, increasing risks of digital violence against politicians, negative campaigning and attempts at coordinated online disinformation.
These potential threats to democratic discourse did not go unnoticed – numerous organisations analysed social media discourse in the run-up to election day. And yet, no organisation used the same methodology, making it difficult to compare findings.
To get a clearer picture, Democracy Reporting International teamed up with pollytix as part of the Disinfo Radar project to perform a meta-analysis, compiling and synthesising key findings of think tanks, civil society actors, news media and academia on:
- Which platforms spread hate and disinformation?
- Who were the targets of hate speech, disinformation narratives, and negative campaigning?
- What were the dominant disinformation topics discussed during #BTW21?
For an overview of the sources we compared, see the table below.
 |
 |
This output is part of the Disinfo Radar project funded by the German Foreign Federal Office.
