“Do you really want to shoot at women and children at the German border?” — ”Yes”
How populists use Social Media to spread hate and how we can deal with it.
Recently, there was a terror attack in Isreal. A man drove a truck right into a group of soldiers, killing four people. As a sign of respect and solicitousness, the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin was illuminated as the flag of Israel. So far so good. Something horrible happened and Germany demonstrates its sympathy with the victims. It is as simple as that and it was the right thing to do. So why was there a huge public uproar concearning this event? It was all thanks to the post that AfD politician Beatrix von Storch posted on Twitter:
Von Storch and her fellow AfD politicians have a history of posting outrageously racist comments at any occasion, but this latest post on Twitter demonstrates much more than the populist, hate-infusing views that we already know from the right-wing movement. It demonstrates how poorly populists inform themselves about facts before using an event like a terror attack to spread even more hate and fear. In this post, Mrs von Storch condemns that the flags of other countries would be projected onto the Brandenburger Tor when there had been a tragedy but that it allegedly hadn’t been illuminated in the colours of the German flag when the terror attack in Berlin happened on the 19th December 2016. Turns out- the Brandenburger Tor actually had been illuminated in German colours right on the day after the attack. Which is exactly what another Twitter user opens up to Mrs von Storch:
Beatrix von Storch’s post is almost too stupid to be real. Did she really forget about the Brandenburger Tor being illuminated in German colours? That’s hard to believe. So was she just willingly spreading wrong information to (once again) create media attention and discussions around her and the AfD? This conclusion seems probable since von Storch already used the same method multiple times in the past. For example when she claimed that the German football team hadn’t lost their match against France in the European Championship if it had consisted only of players with a German heritage. Or when she said that it was ok to shoot at refugee women and children at the German border if they don’t have a residence permit (later on she narrowed that down to it being ok to shoot at women, not children, now THAT’s better…).
Now, the idea behind this tactic is simple. Populists post shocking comments to create attention of any kind. Then, they either delete this post or write another one which states that they had been misunderstood. In the case of the firing order at German borders, such “misunderstanding” unfortunately seemed unlikely since von Storch simply answered “Yes”. Not much to be misinterpreted there. Instead, von Storch later on stated that her hand had slipped off the mouse and accidently posted the answer. Oh, come on. Does she really think people are as stupid? No, of course not. Populists write these posts on purpose, then try to relativise them. They portray themselves as victims who have been misrepresented by journalists (clever way to reinforce the “Lügenpresse”-accusation). By using extremist vocabulary, populists try to catch frustrated citizens who tend to be right-winged and to mobilise them as supporters for their political movement or party.
It is important to understand these racist and highly provocative posts and statements as a political strategy. Populists offer simple “solutions” with simple vocabulary to frustrated people and they play on the emotions of hate and fear to gain support. There are two ways of dealing with this kind of provocation: You could ignore it and therefore withdraw the attention that populists want to receive. Or, as in the latest case concerning the illuminations of the Brandenburger Tor, you can (and should) unmask all the false information, the lies and any incorrectness used by populists and expose them publicly.
So how can you react? Show right-winged supporters that populists are not as credible as they aim to be. Don’t use hate speech against hate speech. Instead, use wit, humour, sarcasm or pure objectivity and facts to expose them.
