Those who sow disinformation want to reap chaos: Deliberately spread false reports can divide entire societies.
In the United States, Donald Trump spread falsehoods for years.
At the end of his term in office he even tried to undermine democracy.
Large parts of his supporters still believe Trump's lies.
In Germany, too, disinformation is increasingly a problem.
Around the 2017 federal election, right-wing groups tried to dispel doubts about the election process with the support of Russian botnets.
Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, thousands of "lateral thinkers" have come together in chat groups.
There they spread and fuel conspiracy myths and falsehoods.
All over the world there is talk of an "infodemia" made up of news about the virus.
The technical possibilities of manipulation are also developing, so-called deepfakes raise doubts about the resilience of video material.
As early as 2018, a video made the rounds on the Internet, which supposedly showed the former US President Barack Obama.
But he had nothing to do with it.
The video was supposed to demonstrate what kind of undetectable deceptions software is already capable of.
And conscientious fact checks - for example on alleged statements by the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock - need time in which the content in question can rapidly spread around the world.
Vote-catching host Marius Mestermann is therefore looking into the question of how to recognize and combat disinformation.
The answer to this is particularly important in the year of a federal election.
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