Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
“Orwellian” is an overused adjective in our post-Covid, technologically advanced modern world. Yet it is the perfect description of Germany’s new advice centre for people who have friends or family prone to “conspiracy thinking”. The country’s Ministry of the Interior is offering help and material to combat the “wrongthink” of those affected, supposedly to stop the spread of fake news and misinformation.
This sounds harmless enough in an age when AI can mimic voices and misinformation can spread rapidly. Just this week, an audio clip spread on social media purporting to show Donald Trump Jr advocating for taking Russia’s side in the Ukraine war. It transpired that this was artificially generated, but it was sufficiently convincing to fool many online.
People who believe that the world is run by shape-shifting lizards, that the radio is talking to them, or that they are being spied on by pigeons are indeed in need of psychological support. Yet these institutions already exist in Germany, so why would SPD minister Nancy Faeser see the need for an additional one?
The answer to this question becomes clearer if one digs a bit deeper. The centre is not run by the state, but instead by a number of “NGOs” that are Left-wing extensions of a supposedly neutral state. One of these organisations is the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which has a lot of experience in creating institutions for the sole purpose of getting Germans to snitch on one another. For example, in July 2022 the Foundation established an office to report “antifeminist activities”, with the aim of documenting incidents “below the threshold of criminal liability”. This is similar to the loathed “non-crime hate incidents” in the UK.
Cases of so-called anti-feminism were, according to the Foundation, not just “organized campaigns against gender-neutral language”, but also “attacks on queer people and institutions”. Interestingly, traditional feminist positions such as the fight against prostitution or misogynistic oppression associated with Islam were not mentioned. In essence, the office was created to document a specific form of non-progressive behaviour and pass that knowledge on to the state.
This might sound like hyperbole, but it is not. In the summer of 2024, a German chef wanted to distribute flyers promoting a street food festival. The flyers contained the following sentence: “Immerse yourself in the exotic world of Asian street food.” The word “exotic” was reported as it could be interpreted as describing “people or cultures as foreign, different and outside the norm”, and so Berlin’s local government sent a letter to the organiser, demanding a change to the wording. This letter failed to note that the chef was from Hanoi. Optimists could say that it “was only a letter”, but they would be disregarding the chilling effect that usually follows such actions. By forcing the removal of the word “exotic” on flyers, politicians are not executing the law — they are trying to blackmail innocent citizens into ideological compliance.
As a result, the new centre for combatting conspiratorial misinformation ought to be met with scepticism. This new initiative is designed to collect information on people and organisations who hold the wrong kinds of views — not illegal views — with the aim of “deprogramming” them. These are not the activities of a liberal state. This is Soviet Union-style paranoia, where everyone is encouraged to spy on their neighbours.
Conspiracy theories, outright lies and misinformation can radicalise unsavoury characters in our societies and lead them to commit atrocities. This is the sort of counter-terrorism Germany should be focusing on, rather than targeting those who refuse to subscribe to Left-wing nostrums. Friedrich Merz, likely to be the next chancellor, has an opportunity to get off on the right foot by scrapping this nonsense immediately.
Original article: Strategic Culture Foundation
