Thursday, February 2, 2017

Germany Struggles to Fight Anti-Migrant Fake News Amid Fears It Could Influence Its Election

In December, Renate Künast, a senior politician from Germany's left-wing party The Greens, was swamped with furious criticism after her remarks about a high-profile murder went viral on Facebook.

Her comments, according to a post shared on the right-wing Resistance of German Patriots' Facebook page, concerned the arrest of an asylum seeker for the rape and murder of a 19-year-old student in Freiburg—a crime that had shocked Germany and sparked a national debate about the potential threat posed by the country's migrant influx.

Künast reportedly said of the suspect: "The traumatized young refugee has indeed killed, but one must nevertheless help him."

The remarks proved incendiary, typifying for some Germans the weak-kneed and indifferent response of the liberal establishment to migrant crime.

Except Künast never said any such thing. The "report" in question ­was merely a doctored image of Künast along with a made-up quote, falsely attributed to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper; it had apparently been created by a Swiss member of the anti-Islam movement PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West).

Read more on VICE News



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