The 2021 German Federal Election on Social Media: Analysing Electoral Risks Created by Twitter and Facebook
Kübler J, Sekwenz MT, Rachinger F, König A, Gsenger R, Pírková E, Wagner B, Kettemann MC, Krennerich M, Ferro C (2023)
Publication Type: Conference contribution
Publication year: 2023
Publisher: IEEE Computer Society
Book Volume: 2023-January
Pages Range: 4036-4045
Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Event location: Virtual
ISBN: 9780998133164
Abstract
Safeguarding democratic elections is hard. Social media plays a vital role in the discourse around elections and during electoral campaigns. The following article provides an analysis of the 'systemic electoral risks' created by Twitter and Facebook and the mitigation strategies employed by the platforms. It is based on the 2020 proposal by the European Commission for the new Digital Services Act (DSA) in the context of the 2021 German federal elections. This article focuses on Twitter and Facebook and their roles during the German federal elections that took place on 26 September 2021. We analysed three systemic electoral risk categories: 1) the dissemination of illegal content, 2) negative effects on electoral rights, and 3) the influence of disinformation and developed systematic categories for this purpose. In conclusion, we discuss how to respond to these challenges as well as avenues for future research.
Authors with CRIS profile
Involved external institutions
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
Netherlands (NL)
Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck / University of Innsbruck
Austria (AT)
Universität Potsdam
Germany (DE)
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU)
Austria (AT)
Netherlands (NL)
Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck / University of Innsbruck
Austria (AT)
Universität Potsdam
Germany (DE)
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU)
Austria (AT)
How to cite
APA:
Kübler, J., Sekwenz, M.T., Rachinger, F., König, A., Gsenger, R., Pírková, E.,... Ferro, C. (2023). The 2021 German Federal Election on Social Media: Analysing Electoral Risks Created by Twitter and Facebook. In Tung X. Bui (Eds.), Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 4036-4045). Virtual: IEEE Computer Society.
MLA:
Kübler, Johanne, et al. "The 2021 German Federal Election on Social Media: Analysing Electoral Risks Created by Twitter and Facebook." Proceedings of the 56th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2023, Virtual Ed. Tung X. Bui, IEEE Computer Society, 2023. 4036-4045.
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