Germany has set up a working group to counter disinformation campaigns conducted by countries, including Russia, which the government in Berlin says are designed to undermine democracy and sow discord, UNN reports citing Bloomberg.
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With the creation of the new unit, the ruling coalition of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
is reportedly taking the next step in implementing the conclusions of its first national security strategy, published last year, which singled out the Kremlin as the main threat to Germany's security.
The working group, created at the joint initiative of the Ministries of Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Justice, will start with 10 specialized analysts, and the number is planned to double to 20, who will be responsible for monitoring and analysis.
The main focus will reportedly be on identifying and exposing disinformation operations on social media, including those allegedly sponsored by the Kremlin. One example is the so-called "Doppelgaenger" campaign, which, according to the German government, resulted in more than a million posts on X out of tens of thousands of fake accounts in a few weeks.
German Interior Minister Nancy Feyser said that the security situation in Germany "remains tense" due to both "Russia's brutal aggressive war against Ukraine" and "the terrible escalation in the Middle East.
"The threat to our democracy from espionage, sabotage, disinformation and cyberattacks has reached a new dimension," Faeser said on Tuesday, presenting the latest annual report of Germany's domestic intelligence service.
According to the report, in addition to the increase in the number of criminal offenses of both right-wing and left-wing extremism, there was also a sharp jump in anti-Semitic crimes.
"We must break the spiral in which escalation in the Middle East leads to even more vile hatred of Jews in our country," Fazer said.
Another goal of the new disinformation task force is to prevent and neutralize campaigns before they start. This tactic is known as "pre-exposure," the government said.
He also wants to make the operators of social media platforms such as X and Facebook more accountable and increase pressure - with sanctions if necessary - to ensure that fake accounts and disinformation campaigns are removed more quickly.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin's war is also directed against us," German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock said in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung published on Sunday.
"He wants to destroy the peaceful order in Europe, and with it as many liberal democracies as possible," she added. - "He also has extreme right-wing and extreme left-wing henchmen in our parliaments who are adopting his propaganda one-for-one.