The German Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, met with representatives of major social media platforms and digital companies on Wednesday to discuss measures to protect the upcoming federal election. The meeting involved Google (YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft, TikTok, and Twitter, according to the Ministry.
The central issue was “measures against targeted disinformation campaigns” as well as “hate crimes” such as murder threats, and the identification of political advertising and content generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence, including deep fakes.
The Ministry did not disclose how the companies responded to the government’s demands. One of the challenges is that the EU’s political advertising transparency regulation, which comes into effect on October 10, 2025, will not be fully in place until then.
The German government takes the threat of foreign influence through disinformation very seriously. The protection of the federal election from hybrid threats by foreign states is of particular importance to ensure safe and free elections, according to the Ministry. “Observations in the international environment show that there is a fundamental interest in possibly illegitimate interference in elections by foreign states, with Russia being the most notable actor at present” the Interior Minister said on Wednesday.
Foreign states, particularly Russia, have a wide range of instruments and the will to influence elections in their favor. This could involve an intensification of cyberattacks, and so-called “hack and leak” and “hack and publish” operations, which aim to unsettle the public, influence the election, or discredit specific candidates or political actors.
According to the Ministry, artificial intelligence-generated or manipulated content plays a significant role in this, including the creation of realistic deep fake videos or audio to deceive voters.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has established a task force and published comprehensive warnings about the threat to the federal election. The Central Office for the Detection of Foreign Information Manipulation (ZEAM), which is located within the Federal Ministry of the Interior, has also started its work, focusing on the methods, dissemination channels, and mechanisms of foreign influence through information manipulation in social networks and the internet, in order to identify and counter it as early as possible.