It can happen here… Berlin’s 38K strong Covid truther protest- Europe’s largest - didn’t happen in a vacuum. I’ve spend the past year looking at German-lang. influencers & disinfo patterns. Here some thoughts (incl my @ForeignPolicy article) – (1/15) https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/02/germany-is-losing-the-fight-against-qanon/">https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/0...
As noted, the #b2908 protest had an eclectic mix of “Free Assange” banners, QAnon signs, & American, Rainbow, Russian, German and Wilhelmine Imperial War flags; a peace treaty for RU and the US; a storming of the Bundestag; & RFKJr. (5/15)
Attila Hildmann, the Turkish-German vegan chef-turned-influencer w over 80K followers on Telegram is quickly becoming the face of Germany’s anti-lockdown, anti-Merkel nationalism (6/15) https://www.rbb24.de/politik/thema/2020/coronavirus/beitraege_neu/2020/08/ermittlungen-gegen-attila-hildmann-laufen-noch.html">https://www.rbb24.de/politik/t...
Social media platforms, mass private messaging systems and influencer speech don’t have sufficient normative & reg guardrails to address Covid disinfo in DE (10/15)
German-language disinformation on Covid is removed from platforms less often than English or French-language equivalents, partly due to staff shortages (12/15).
https://www.newsguardtech.com/facebook-super-spreaders-europe/">https://www.newsguardtech.com/facebook-...
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