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In Germany, social media algorithms are pumping out huge amounts of far-right, pro-AfD content.
(www.niemanlab.org)
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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This is an easy problem to solve. Denmark solved their right wing problem years ago. The centre left party adopted slightly tougher immigration policies and the right wing party last half their supporters almost overnight. Poll after poll across Europe finds the same: immigration is a major issue for voters. Get tougher on immigration and watch AfD disappear. It’s the easiest political win in history but so many parties refuse to do it. Bleating about social media influence is a losing battle. The internet is free and will remain free. It’s literally designed to work around censorship like it’s a damaged part of the network.
This is the opposite of true. Appeasing the far right on immigration in other countries has led to disaster, every time. It's caused Brexit. It shifts the overton window., allowing their rhetoric to become mainstream, making it credible. You do not give these fucks an inch. You tell them no. They have to be fought as early as possible, because they're like bedbugs: if you allow them in you can't get rid of them.
Apparently telling voters “no” is working terribly because right wing parties keep rising in polls. The evidence directly contradicts your claim. I don’t see how Brexit was caused in any way by appeasement. If anything, Brexit was caused by derision and dismissal, leaving low socioeconomic voters in particular no other way to vent their anger than by burning an institution to the ground. If you don’t give voters what they want they will vote extremists into power, or vote for extreme solutions out of spite.
Broadly speaking I find the argument of telling voters “no” in a democracy absurd and authoritarian.
Those voters had already been brainwashed by fascists into thinking destitute refugees and asylum seekers were at the root of their problems instead of offshore bank accounts stuffed with their taxes, which should have been used to pay for public services and housing.