Missing link: Fear of the great influence
Possible election interference is a major concern for politicians and authorities right before the general election, indicating a lack of public trust.
(Image: I'm friday/Shutterstock.com)
Once again, Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) used big words this week: "Our security authorities are vigilant in all areas to uncover and stop attempts at foreign influence and targeted disinformation ahead of the federal elections." Faeser had met with representatives from X, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Tiktok as well as representatives from organizations including the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, Correctiv and the Reset Tech initiative. And on Friday, the Federal Network Agency, as the German Digital Services Coordinator, met with the platforms to discuss electoral needs under the Digital Services Act.
The variety of threats to which Germany is exposed is huge. Influence can take many different forms – and not all of them are illegal. For example, if Elon Musk believes that Alice Weidel and her party would be an excellent choice, this is interference by someone who is not entitled to vote in Germany. However, it is not a legal problem as long as it does not involve any donations or monetary benefits for the preferred party. This is because donations from non-EU countries are strictly prohibited under the Political Parties Act as soon as they amount to more than 1000 euros or represent such a value.
It seems much clearer to the responsible authorities and observers who is determined to have their fingers in the pie before February 23. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), who, like so many of her other plans, did not present the announced "Action Plan against Disinformation" in time for the Bundestag elections, sees one actor in particular: "Lies and propaganda are instruments that Russia in particular uses to attack our democracy."
Almost all observers are certain that Putin's henchmen are trying in various ways to intervene in the elections of states they consider hostile in order to promote a politically more favorable result. However, the precise attribution of incidents requires time – time, which is lacking in the tightly timed federal election campaign.
Discrediting by video
As a result, there is still no clear attribution of responsibility for an AI video that was intended to discredit Robert Habeck at the beginning of December. A few googleable facts, a photo, a spoken text, an AI video generator, a fake news site and a few X accounts: The attempted attack was complete. It failed miserably, because even the most gullible users were able to recognize the story as a hoax. And even the biased media, which usually blames Habeck for all kinds of problems at every opportunity, avoided taking this video into serious consideration.
This, too, is a lesson from previous observations of attempts to exert influence: If trolls only interact with trolls, pretty much nothing happens. They need amplification: the leap into broader public spheres. Ideally via traditional forms of media, which still have a wide reach, or via influencers and social media stars. After all, achieving relevant reach is still one of the main problems faced by election influencers – and many a high-reach Youtuber or TikToker is looking for advertising customers.
AI as a fire accelerator
It is therefore by no means guaranteed that things will remain quiet for the rest of the parliamentary election campaign. The combination of old, googleable content and brazenly invented content with ever-improving, cheap and freely available AI tools harbors the potential for problems. Material that looks almost deceptively real can be generated with just a few clicks. What if something suddenly appears on the Friday before the election that can no longer be "debunked" before the polling stations open? What if it is perhaps even based on real documents? But all context has been omitted?
The Central Office for the Detection of Foreign Information Manipulation (ZEAM) is an inter-ministerial and inter-agency body tasked with identifying such attempts as early as possible. What it does not have is the task of putting an end to them. And what the dozen or so employees of the federal government and a federal consultancy agency also lack is access to the providers' interfaces. They have to browse the internet like any other user. There is no legal basis for looking around in closed groups, for example. That works, but it's a far cry from an early 360° view. The Federal Foreign Office is also represented in ZEAM, which uses "specially developed tools to detect manipulative behavior on social media", as stated in an answer to a question from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group a few days ago: "However, the use of these tools is not possible, for example with regard to TikTok, for technical reasons." Not an isolated case.
Fear of "hack and leak"
Election interference observers consider time to be a critical factor: the sooner something is detected, the faster the response can be. Because no one knows what's coming. In particular, the parties that have been victims of hacks in recent years are in the spotlight. The Social Democrats' email accounts were hacked in 2022, as were those of the Greens. The CDU is considered to be particularly at risk after its VPN solution became a gateway to its party headquarters' systems just last May. The CDU, of all parties, which has always found it difficult to deal with democratically-minded hackers, fell victim to the evil side and a previously unknown security gap, a zero-day exploit. What exactly was leaked in the process and whether it is suitable as a compromise, as blackmail material, before or after the election? Unknown. What is clear, however, is that those responsible are definitely concerned, even if the attribution of the attack has not yet been completed. After all, zero days are not usually exploited by small-scale digital criminals.
However, according to security circles, the complicated German election campaign is not necessarily the best opportunity to exploit knowledge gained in this way, but rather the time after the election, when individual politicians play a much greater role beyond the top candidates –, for example when it comes to ministerial posts.
How do you stop influence peddling with laws?
But before that, there is the question of the election result. And that is generated by the voters. The question of how to deal with influence on these has played a role for 150 years. Even when Germany first slowly tried to learn democracy (and failed), the healing power of laws was propagated as a solution: "Anyone who offers, promises or grants gifts or other advantages to a German or threatens disadvantages in order to induce him to cast his vote in public affairs in a particular way shall be punished with imprisonment for not less than one month," was a bill proposed by the Social Democrats Johann Most and Wilhelm Blos in the imperially tolerated Reichstag in 1878. "Excluded are references to the possible consequences for public affairs arising from the election and the activities of the elected person, even if these affect the circumstances of the individual."
The law was not passed in 1878, but in the same year the law against the dangerous aspirations of the Social Democrats was passed. This is unlikely to see a new edition for the time being. After all, today's social democracy is more statist than ever. And yet the question remains: what can laws achieve? Now that almost every German can be persuaded to "cast their vote in a particular way" from anywhere in the world?
The DSA should fix it
Many hopes are currently pinned on the Digital Services Act (DSA), the piece of EU legislation that Thierry Breton, who was once responsible for it, called the "basic law for the Internet". And which imposes regulations on the largest providers of communication platforms in Europe in particular. There is no Sunday speech in which the DSA is not somehow supposed to protect the integrity of elections. And yes, the platforms must take measures under the DSA to mitigate risks inherent in their systems. For example, if illegal election advertising were to be financed from abroad, if algorithms were to flush illegal content to the top.
But nailing parties down to the factual accuracy of their statements? That's not on the cards – Freedom of opinion is a valuable asset, especially during election campaigns, even if a lot of nonsense is spread. Because as long as it is not legally relevant, there is no problem – and even then there is only an active duty for the operators in a tiny area.
European law and German law do not yet work together
This is because something is missing at a crucial point: the interaction of German and EU laws. This is because the so-called electoral offenses include provisions that make it a punishable offence to directly influence an individual during an election. For example, it is strictly forbidden to put up posters in the immediate vicinity of a polling station. It is also forbidden to promise someone money or other benefits in return for voting for a particular party. Offering your vote via sales platforms also falls under – All of these are defined criminal offenses. Threatening candidates is also included, as is disrupting the vote count.
This is important because German criminal law and European law are intertwined here. If an operator such as X, TikTok, Instagram, Telegram, a forum operator or any other host of content is made aware of possible criminal offenses that are directed against the safety or life of a person. For example, if an attack on election candidates is planned, they must inform the Federal Criminal Police Office.
However, if there is a suspicion of vote buying or intended voter fraud, there is no direct reporting obligation. This also applies to deep fakes and other attempts to exert influence. However, third parties can report the matter to the police. If the prosecution authorities grind their teeth fast enough, they can then use Articles 9 and 10 of the Digital Services Act to block content and request information about the user in question. However, operators and employees of supervisory authorities report that this procedure has not yet been implemented at all in Germany's complicated system of responsibilities for the police and judiciary.
Unclear prospects
The likelihood of attempts to exert influence before the election is therefore high – The presidential election in Romania a few weeks ago serves as a cautionary tale, despite some remaining uncertainties. And the German structures and authorities are by no means as well-positioned as Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and some authority leaders like to claim: there is still plenty of room for improvement. And yet it could still be that as little happens again as in 2017 and 2021. But even if a lot does happen, one thing will not change: the fact that the cross on the ballot paper is ultimately made by the citizens – How they decide between the election options, who they allow influencing them or not, is entirely up to them.
(vbr)
