The election campaign broke out overnight and there are great fears that it will get messy. But widespread criticism of politicians is not the same as a smear campaign.
A good dozen women criticized CDU chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz on TikTok over the course of several days. At the same time,a media article claims that the SPD is planning a “smear campaign” against the CDU leader and that 100 women should warn against Merz. What developed online last Saturday is a lesson: It shows how difficult it is to distinguish between authentic discontent and controlled campaigns during election campaigns – and how some people deliberately mix the two.
It is indeed a play in several acts. It actually starts with videos of women on TikTok,which have been increasingly uploaded in the past few days. Sometimes it’s about Friedrich Merz’s image of women, sometimes it’s about support for Ukraine, then it’s about supposed right-wing populism. Some of the videos come from SPD members, some from female AfD supporters, some of the women have no party affiliation.But the videos haven’t even appeared on the big stage when the curtain is already opening on a piece in which Merz himself and those around him don’t appear at all, but media like ”Focus online”, “Nius” and various CDU network activists do.
First act, the “Focus” article: On Saturday evening, “focus online” published a text under the title: “Election campaign from the bottom drawer: SPD is planning a smear campaign! Women should stir up fear of Friedrich Merz”. According to “exclusive Focus online data,” the SPD is planning to have 100 women stir up fear of Merz in spots. The CDU is said to know about it, “Focus online” has a CDU insider blaming the SPD, but has not asked the SPD about the accusation.The article makes no mention of the fact that there are already published videos at this point in which women criticize merz.
second act, the reactions: The “Focus online” article was immediately shared widely on social media with outrage about the SPD, and CDU mps and officials also forwarded it.The first users remember that they have already seen videos in which women make critical comments about Merz. Finn Werner attracts a lot of attention with his X appearance. Werner used to be the CSU’s social media manager. Now he works, among other things, for the right-wing conservative PR agency “the Republic”.
An hour and a half after the article appeared, Werner posted a video of a TikToker on X and wrote that he was stunned. Then follow his “Exhibits B to L” –
The background – campaigns against the CDU: actually, there are definitely campaigns against parties that are supposed to look like grassroots protests. Networking via the Internet makes this much easier.Though, they usually remain largely in the background. before the 2017 federal election,it became known that right-wing extremists had banded together as “Reconquista Germanica” and planned attacks online.
In 2021, a Telegram group with more than 1,000 members called “Destruction of the CDU” networked for concerted actions on social media. Key players from fridays for Future were behind this,but not the institution itself. The group discussed how hashtags and messages could be spread as best as possible through coordinated joint posting.The then CDU candidate for chancellor armin Laschet was targeted every two days at times. When asked by t-online, an organizer did not find it worthy of criticism that these actions had been agreed upon. “Demonstrations on the street are planned in advance,” he said at the time.
The SPD member of the state parliament Bengt Bergt had also just shared a fake video created by artificial intelligence** in which Merz made derogatory comments about democracy. However, this was promptly criticized by the SPD leadership and bergt apologized in writing to Merz. Union supporters have now cited it online in connection with the “Focus online” report as evidence of SPD smear campaigns. Likewise, a study by the Bundeswehr University on the 2023 Bavarian state election found that the SPD was responsible for most of the negative campaigning, i.e. for statements that denigrate political opponents. Though, it is indeed not unusual for – as in the Bavarian case – opposition parties to attack political opponents more than government parties.