Fake News and Hate Speech - Evidence from Germany

Hate crimes against politicians have become a contentious topic in German media and public discussion. At the same time there is little empirical evidence on how big the phenomena are in the digital media and how the digital media and the real world are interlinked. This paper tries to provide some empirical insight into hate speech and fake news in the digital media and how they may spill over into the real world. Also, the effectiveness of counter measures is checked. The analysis is based on a questionnaire among German local and regional politicians and administrative leaders (n=818). In a pilot study, questionnaires from members of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe (in the following: Congress) were analyzed (n=187). In view of the small sample of the pilot study the – somewhat modified – questionnaire was rolled out in several European countries. This paper reports on the German results.