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Facebook, YouTube and Twitter: "Professionalization" in spreading fake news
Photo: Tobias Hase / dpa
What are the risks to society from incorrect information on the Internet?
Is the upcoming federal election endangered by disinformation?
A new study provides insights into how disinformation can spread in Germany and what the consequences are.
For the study entitled “Disinformation in Germany”, fact checkers, researchers, specialist journalists and representatives of civil society organizations were interviewed.
According to the experts, one of the risks lies in the increasing "messengerization" of false information, according to the as yet unpublished study, ie in the distribution via messenger apps.
The most important social media network for spreading disinformation is therefore WhatsApp.
92 percent of those surveyed named the app as the most relevant platform, closely followed by Facebook (89 percent) and YouTube (88 percent).
According to the survey, in which multiple answers were possible, Telegram is also particularly relevant at 88 percent, although the Messenger only has a fraction of the users compared to the others.
"Telegram is also so efficient for disseminating disinformation because the relevant groups and channels are not comparable to a network of platforms such as YouTube, on which a wide variety of providers are active," says study author Fiete Stegers from the University of Applied Sciences ( HAW).
Fact checks or the concept of counter-speech, which can help against disinformation, could just be a drop in the ocean, according to Stegers.
"While YouTube and Facebook intervene more strictly with questionable content, Telegram hardly does that."
Medium-term radicalization instead of direct election manipulation
Not all respondents see the risk of the general election being directly manipulated as a result of the false information that is circulating.
Only 20 percent named this as a risk in Germany.
However, more than two thirds of the 63 experts warn in principle against “influencing citizens” in Germany through disinformation.
"In the case of targeted campaigns with incorrect information, the medium and long-term consequences are particularly problematic," said Stegers.
"Disinformation leads to polarization, radicalization of individuals and the loss of credibility of the media." In the study, around three quarters of those questioned each cited these three points as the global impact of disinformation.
According to the experts, people who "are already inclined to the message being conveyed and feel confirmed by it," according to the study available to SPIEGEL, are particularly susceptible to disinformation campaigns.
According to the respondents, age also plays a role.
Contrary to the sometimes expressed cliché that young people in particular would fall for the wrong thing on the Internet, 74 percent of those questioned see this risk more in older people than in adolescents and young adults only 40 percent.
"Older people tend to be more susceptible to false reports than young people," summarizes Stegers.
The study also warns that there have hardly been any measures that explicitly educate older people.
For younger target groups, on the other hand, there is now a wide selection of different educational offers.
Deliberately omit instead of clumsy fakes
The experts see another important development in the "professionalization" of those who spread false information.
"Many actors have long been able to gain experience in how to efficiently circulate false information," says Stegers.
Often they would be more skilful than spreading crude falsehoods.
"Instead, the language is formulated in a more targeted manner, suggested with subjunctive, rather deliberately left out or distorted."
An example of how distorted images can be used to create mood on the Internet was also shown in the days after the flood disaster in western Germany.
A meme with the picture of Bundeswehr soldiers helping and the saying that the soldiers are the "only good Greens" circulated on social media platforms.
According to an analysis by the think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue, however, many of the images did not come from the current flood disaster.
Before the meme was shared on Facebook pages that are close to the AfD, according to the analysis available to SPIEGEL, it was already spreading on private accounts and in private groups.
One of the public distributors was therefore the Deutschland Kurier on Facebook and Telegram.
The picture has now been shared more than 2500 times.
Corrections can also spread fakes
Fiete Stegers is also concerned about how media companies deal with false information from the Internet. "Established media have a responsibility - they sometimes create misinformation many times over and ensure that they also reach people who would otherwise not come into contact with it," says Stegers. In the study, the respondents say that only 10 percent of the media have learned how to address disinformation in their reporting without contributing to its dissemination.
"It still happens that the media refute disinformation in such a way that the false information gets stuck," says Stegers. This is currently exemplified by some reports about the special beds in the Olympic Village in Tokyo, in which the athletes allegedly cannot have sex. In some cases it was reported in such a way that the wrong rather than the correcting threatened to get stuck with the readers.
As an explanation for why he carried out the survey commissioned by the Vodafone Foundation Germany, Stegers points out that there has not yet been a comprehensive study on disinformation in Germany. "Most investigations concentrate on a single platform or a single incident." The current study, on the other hand, was intended to provide a general overview, which, however, was methodologically difficult. That is why they asked experts who have been dealing with the topic for a long time.