Voters in Germany are being exposed to copious far-right narratives online from AI-generated content and Russian disinformation campaigns.
Experts monitoring social media say Russian-based groups are involved, including “Doppelganger” and “Storm-1516”, which US officials found to be active in America’s election last year.
Some of these campaigns are using artificial intelligence to spread their messaging ahead of Sunday’s vote, which will see Germany elect a new Bundestag.
Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) has been more active on social media than other parties during the campaign and is in second place in opinion polls.
Methods are said to include creating fake TV news stories or deep-fake videos of apparent “witnesses” or “whistle blowers” fabricating stories about prominent politicians.
For example, in November 2024, shortly before the snap election was called, a video was published that claimed one parliamentary member who is an outspoken supporter of Ukraine was a Russian spy.
Dr Marcus Faber, a member of the Free Democratic Party and head of the government’s defence committee, was targeted in a video which used AI to suggest a former adviser was making the claim. We asked Dr Faber for his reaction to the video but he was unable to comment at this time.
In another video an 18-year-old woman accused a German minister of child abuse – the accusation was false, and the video was made using AI.
A recent report from the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy, or CeMAS, a non-profit thinktank specialising in the analysis of disinformation and right-wing extremism, and Alliance 4 Europe which aims to combat digital disinformation, has linked both stories to the Russian disinformation campaign Storm-1516.
The researchers have also been tracking the Doppelganger campaign, run by a Russian PR company Social Design Agency, widely reported to have links to the Kremlin.
They have found the group’s main tactic is to create fake news articles, which often resemble well-known publications. A network of social media accounts then share and spread those articles across different platforms.
Posts will often appear to be from a worried citizen, like the one below that reads: “I am concerned that aid to Ukraine will impact our ability to invest in our own infrastructure and social security systems.”
Image: The route of a Doppelganger disinformation post
The post links to a fake news article criticising Germany’s funding for the war in Ukraine, on a fake website resembling the German newspaper Der Spiegel.
“Different Russian campaigns are trying, on the one hand, to discredit established parties,” says Julia Smirnova, a senior researcher for CeMAS. “They’re also trying to boost the far-right AfD.”
“It’s not about just one fake video or one fake article. There’s a systematic effort to constantly create this flood of false stories, flood of propaganda stories, and continue spreading them,” she says.
From mid-December 2024 to mid-January 2025, CeMAS found a total of 630 German-language posts with typical Doppelgänger patterns on X alone.
For Ferdinand Gehringer, a cybersecurity policy adviser, Russian interference online isn’t a surprise.
“There are clear objectives for Russia to interfere and to also manipulate our public opinion,” he says.
From the party’s plan to stop sending arms to Ukraine to their calls to ramp up imports of Russian gas, he says “Russia sees within the AfD’s program and ideas the best options for future cooperation”.
CeMAS has found at least one case where a fake story that originated from a Russian campaign was spread by an AfD politician.
Stephan Protschka, a parliamentary member, posted on his social media channels that the Green Party was working with Ukraine to recruit people to commit crimes and blame them on the AfD, a narrative researchers say originated from a Russian disinformation campaign.
Image: Stephan Protschka’s posts on X and Facebook, including Russian disinformation
Sky News asked Mr Protschka for comment, but he did not respond.
We also reached out to Social Design Agency to respond to the allegations against the Doppelganger group. They did not respond. We were unable to contact anyone behind the Storm-1516 campaign for comment.
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Beyond the extremes of Russian-led disinformation campaigns, far-right groups within Germany are also ramping up their online presence. Take Larissa Wagner, an AI-generated social media influencer.
“Hey guys, I’m just on my way to the polling station. I’m daring this time. I’m voting for AfD,” she said in a video posted to her X account on 22 September 2024, the day of the Brandenburg state election.
Her accounts on Twitter and Instagram were both created in the last year and her regular videos espouse far-right narratives, like telling Syrian immigrants to “pack your bags and go back home”.
She even says she interned with the right-wing magazine Compact, which was banned by the German government last year.
It’s unclear who created Larissa. When Sky News messaged to ask her on Instagram she replied: “I think it’s completely irrelevant who controls me. Influencers like me are the future…
“Like anyone else, I want to share my perspective on things. Every influencer does that. But because I’m young, attractive, and right-wing, it’s framed as ‘influencing the political discourse’.”
Ferdinand Gehringer notes that her posts have become more radical over time. “The potential for influence is significant-especially since the presence of a young, attractive woman increases audience engagement,” he adds.
The far-right’s use of generative AI on social media goes beyond characters like Larissa. A report this week from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue assessed the scale of its use, identifying 883 posts since April 2023 that included images, memes and music videos made using generative AI.
The posts came from far-right supporters as well as the AfD itself – party accounts published more than 50 posts that contained generative AI content in October alone.
The AfD is using AI more than other parties, says Pablo Maristany de las Casas, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who co-authored the report. “They’re clearly the one actor that is exploiting this technology the most,” he says.
The messaging in the far-right content they sampled falls into two categories: attacking narratives, like AI-generated images of migrants portrayed as violent criminals, and narratives that glorify traditional German values.
When these two narratives are combined, “the far-right community feels more united in the so-called cultural fight against these groups that they’re attacking,” says Mr Maristany de las Casas.
Take Remigration Song, a promotional song and music video commissioned by the now-disbanded youth wing of the AfD. It was produced using AI and advocates the mass deportation of immigrants – known as remigration.
It’s this home-grown content that some experts say could affect public opinions.
A recent survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a thinktank which promotes social reform, showed that 80% of Germans consider disinformation on the internet to be a major problem for society and 88% agreed that disinformation is spread to influence political opinions.
“Just the foreign information itself is probably not going to shift attitudes” says senior researcher Cathleen Berger. “I think the impact only comes when it is being picked up by domestic actors”.
Additional reporting from Olive Enokido-Lineham, OSINT producer; Mary Poynter, Data and Forensics producer.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Donald Trump has announced a 10% trade tariff on all imports from the UK – as he unleashed sweeping tariffs across the globe.
Speaking at a White House event entitled “Make America Wealthy Again”, the president held up a chart detailing the worst offenders – which also showed the new tariffs the US would be imposing.
“This is Liberation Day,” he told a cheering audience of supporters, while hitting out at foreign “cheaters”.
He claimed “trillions” of dollars from the “reciprocal” levies he was imposing on others’ trade barriers would provide relief for the US taxpayer and restore US jobs and factories.
Mr Trump said the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations.
Image: Pic: AP
His first tariff announcement was a 25% duty on all car imports from midnight – 5am on Thursday, UK time.
Mr Trump confirmed the European Union would face a 20% reciprocal tariff on all other imports. China’s rate was set at 34%.
The UK’s rate of 10% was perhaps a shot across the bows over the country’s 20% VAT rate, though the president’s board suggested a 10% tariff imbalance between the two nations.
It was also confirmed that further US tariffs were planned on some individual sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical mineral imports.
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The ramping up of duties promises to be painful for the global economy. Tariffs on steel and aluminium are already in effect.
The UK government signalled there would be no immediate retaliation.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers. That’s why, throughout the last few weeks, the government has been fully focused on negotiating an economic deal with the United States that strengthens our existing fair and balanced trading relationship.
“The US is our closest ally, so our approach is to remain calm and committed to doing this deal, which we hope will mitigate the impact of what has been announced today.
“We have a range of tools at our disposal and we will not hesitate to act. We will continue to engage with UK businesses including on their assessment of the impact of any further steps we take.
“Nobody wants a trade war and our intention remains to secure a deal. But nothing is off the table and the government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.”
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The EU has pledged to retaliate, which is a problem for Northern Ireland.
Should that scenario play out, the region faces the prospect of rising prices because all its imports are tied to EU rules under post-Brexit trading arrangements.
It means US goods shipped to Northern Ireland would be subject to the EU’s reprisals.
The impact of a trade war would be expected to be widely negative, with tit-for-tat tariffs risking job losses, a ramping up of prices and cooling of global trade.
Research for the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested more than 25,000 direct jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry alone could be at risk from the tariffs on car exports to the US.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had said the tariff costs could not be absorbed by manufacturers and may lead to a review of output.
The tariffs now on UK exports pose a big risk to growth and the so-called headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to restore to the public finances at the spring statement, risking further spending cuts or tax rises ahead to meet her fiscal rules.
A member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), David Miles, told MPs on Tuesday that US tariffs at 20% or 25% maintained on the UK for five years would “knock out all the headroom the government currently has”.
But he added that a “very limited tariff war” that the UK stays out of could be “mildly positive”.
He said: “There’s a bit of trade that will get diverted to the UK, and some of the exports from China, for example, that would have gone to the US, they’ll be looking for a home for them in the rest of the world.
“And stuff would be available in the UK a bit cheaper than otherwise would have been. So there is one, not central scenario at all, which is very, very mildly potentially positive to the UK. All the other ones which involve the UK facing tariffs are negative, and they’re negative to very different extents.”