New research shows that Meta is monetising far-right content targeting German voters, with ads that appear to breach its own community policies and advertising standards, and risk driving support for the extremist AFD party ahead of critical EU elections.
The investigation by corporate accountability group Ekō uncovered a series of 23 ads, primarily paid for by AfD regional party groups and leading AfD elected representatives, which push hate speech, racist and anti-democratic narratives, and anti-immigrant disinformation and collectively received over 470,000 impressions. These include ads that appear to contain AI-generated imagery but were not labelled as such and therefore potentially breach Meta’s new policy on AI-manipulated ads. Researchers found:
The AfD has come under heavy criticism for its advocacy of extreme policies such as mass deportation. Revelations in January that top AfD officials had secretly met to plan out the mass expulsion of asylum seekers and German nationals of with a migration background under the euphemism “re-migration”, caused a national outcry. One AfD party ad account (Saxony-Anhalt) identified in the research has been categorised as having ‘extremist aspirations’, the highest threat level used by the state intelligence services.
Civil society organizations, tech experts and some politicians have long sounded the alarm about the role of social media platforms in amplifying the hate speech and conspiracy theories propagated by the far-right such as . This ‘megaphone effect’ is driven by powerful recommender systems which directly target and mobilize voters with a bespoke stream of content designed to maximize engagement.
Ekō Campaign director Vicky Wyatt said:
“This isn't a far-right dog whistle, it's a far-right foghorn. That Meta hasn't done anything to stop it shows how deeply unserious they are about protecting democracy. But Europe's leaders have the world's toughest tech laws at their disposal, and can use them right now to pull Meta into line and protect all our futures.”
The EU Commission recently announced that it has launched infringement proceedings over Meta’s compliance with the Digital Services Act, relating to deceptive advertising and political content. But with European Parliamentary elections just weeks away, it is critical that urgent, additional measures are taken to protect people’s rights and guard against immediate threats to democracy.
Ekō, alongside other civil society organizations within the People vs Big Tech network, is calling on EU Commissioner Thierry Breton to force tech companies to take further steps to safeguard the EU elections by:
ENDS
For more information or interviews contact Vicky Wyatt at +1 415 960 7920 or vicky@eko.org
For more information about a current Ekō campaign or to arrange an interview with a spokesperson please contact us at
