Thursday, July 15, 2021

Is Germany Worried About the Upcoming Election?

 It's just over two months away now for the federal election, and yesterday....the national government stood up and announced some things to indicate that they are worried about the integrity of the election.  Mostly, they are fearful of propaganda being introduced, and that fake news might fake out Germans.

ARD (public TV, Channel One) did a talk over the subject that I noticed this morning and I'd recommend a read of it.

Fear of bogus ballots? No, the system is actually built to prevent that.

I think the bulk of this fear is simply some corruption story will be thrown into the cycle, and suddenly people have doubts about this candidate or this political party.  

Who would inject propaganda into the system?  Some people suggest that Russia or Russia-supporting individuals might do something.  

The problem here....as much as people get all chatty about social media....the numbers aren't that great.  Facebook members in Germany (as of June 2021)....are around 49-million, but I suspect that near half simply have it to connect to friends, and it's not a major news-providing service.  As for German Twitter uses, the 2020 data says that only 5.45-million have the Twitter App and are 'members'.  Remember....the total population of Germany is 83-million.

What you can take out of this chatter......mostly that people think the campaign season could be drawn into some wild accusation and the election ends up in a corruption state of being.  

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