> What is unusual is that the leaked emails are not published on the site directly. Instead, AI-generated summaries are shown, categorised and rated from Low to Critical.
Interesting choice. I don't feel like I'm at the comfort level where I would really trust any of those summaries - although I can respect the reasoning behind it.
I assume because of the high quantity they try to protect individual's privacy that way. Otherwise going by hand through each email would take years for PII and other links redaction.
Because the leakers might have ethical standards? Same as with snowden not dumping everything directly and letting journalists scrub it first. None of this actually applies though because everything (supposedly) got leaked in the torrent.
the leak is much more then emails, e.g. it includes a lot of donations, members in certain regional groups etc.
it also dates back to the funding times of the AfD at which point the AfD had not yet been clearly right radical, but a side publishing it might very well be scanned by bots and then someone decent who was shortly a member during the early days and left due realizing this is going in a very bad direction might "permanently" be described as AfD member or similar in search, agent questions, e.g. done when they look for a new job
but I think the more relevant point here is probably the reduction of legal consequences and I wouldn't be surprised if whoever provided the site and the hacker are two different entities
lastly this seem to have been an exceedingly trivial but AI supported hack, so there is some chance the was done by a young and very inexperienced person who got more then they bargained for and try to somehow balance personal risk with the hope that this helps with convincing more people how bad the AfD is or similar
either-way multiple new sites and other sources have downloaded the sources and verified random samples where possible and it seem the dump is actually fully authentic
I don't think there is much difference in the crime committed.
But intend can matter if you are caught can influence where in the possible range of penalties the judge will judge you.
There is also a chance the site provider and actual hacker/torrent provider are not the same person, in which case if they go after the site provider they could argue they just did automatized journalistic work with reasonable journalistic standards (not sure if that will work, but it would be worth a try; also only relevant if they are two different people).
Lastly the hacker might be very inexperienced/didn't really expect much success which also could explain the current outcome.
There is also the point that a website might be indexed by bots/search engines, the torrent might not and this could cause some problems. E.g. very very early one the AfD was not yet clear right radical and the mails date back to this time. If someone hat interactions with them only then but now get indexed by some search/ai which lets say an employer uses to screen hires this could have very bad consequences for that person without them having done anything wrong (if their connection to it really was only during the very very early days).
That's a weird take? It's entirely plausible to think that some of the info should be in the public (illegal stuff, prove of bad character, what's their strategy etc.) but not every PII in it? Like bank accounts, private addresses, private photos.
yes and more or less all respectable news reporting in Germany is done based on the raw sources
but this AI summaries have been a mistake as now the AfD will with some degree of success go around claiming that anything bad is supposedly AI generated, even if it very clearly isn't
>Youre absolutely right. The fascist and de humanizing content might just as well be hallucinated. /s
It might not be entirely hallucinated, but it's still a real concern given all the discussions about the AfD inevitably gets filled with people engaging in motte-and-bailey tactics. For instance, are the AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)? In cases like these rough summaries inevitably mangle the exact policy positions, which might make them look better/worse than they actually are. You might think "AfD are fascists anyways, who cares if their positions get mangled?", but that's terrible epistemics.
and the original is available for download via torrent and most newspapers etc. have based their reporting on this
> AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution
a huge part of the people currently in leading position had been in organizations which where so extrema radical and anti-constitutional that they have been force dissolved which has a very high legal burden to happen. This includes organizations which where out right Neo-Nazi organizations celebrating Hitler and what he did (but also many other not neo-nazi but not any less dangerous organizations/movement)
> (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)?
concretely defined because many of their members have been in neo nazi and other similar bad organizations which have been force desolved
and because they have very openly represented values which are against most of the extra protected/valued part of the German constitution, including in no specific order
- very publicly being against woman rights in many cases and forms, including in speeches hold in the "senate" (Bundestag)
- not "just" being against immigrants, but dehumanizing them and calling for violence against them
- their publicized anti immigration plans also go beyond immigrants seem to want to kick out anyone with different ethnicity no matter if they have grown up as a German Citizen. Sure they are a bit more vague about this, but it's the only way their numbers about people they want to kick out add up.
- campaigning for wanting to remove some of the check and balances in the constitution against extremist populist takeover
- lets also not forget stuff like that they just recently tried to conspire with the BSW to prevent elected CDU officials from taking part ins some votes
to just name a very small fraction of what they did.
Nothing there is "vague", or "maybe this are just some people" or anything like this. This party is _very clear cut_ a threat to German constitution even if this might not apply to every single member of it.
If you apply the same standards as for the process against the NPD the AfD would have been dissolved by now.
"Dominic Cummings warned on The Spectator's Quite Right! podcast that Whitehall and the civil service would resort to illegal tactics—such as leaking confidential medical and tax records or bugging phones—to prevent Nigel Farage and Reform UK from gaining power."
>Dominic Mckenzie Cummings (born 25 November 1971) is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until he resigned on 13 November 2020.[1]
Why should we care about a former government advisor who resigned 6 years ago, and isn't even in the same party as the government in power?
A) He's been closer to the levers of power than probably either of us, so would have a better view of how it would work and b) he didn't resign in disgrace.
>A) He's been closer to the levers of power than probably either of us, so would have a better view of how it would work and
But that's not an infinite excuse to extrapolate from one person's statement to the whole of uk political establishment. Not to mention he's not a totally neutral party either. According to wikipedia he's against the conservative party and supports Reform UK.
"In 2025 he dropped calls for the creation of a start-up party to replace the Tories and in a blog post in March talked up Reform UK."
I'd like to hope so, but the security services have been remarkably relaxed about the far right and focus all their energy on environmentalists and little old ladies holding up "Palestine Action" signs.
Or they could just let people vote for the party they agree with? Whether that party favours Palestine or limited immigration or whatever their policy is.
Why would you "like to hope so"? The same laws should exist for everyone and that includes agents of the state.
As for people supporting "Palestine Action", activists always have their most sympathetic looking members e.g. elderly women to have arrested as it makes the authorities look worse.
Palestine Action have done at least two violent crimes and several hundred other offences including burglary, vandalism.
Just because people have the politics you like doesn't mean they are all sunshine and rainbows.
The Reform/Restore parties you dislike are pursuing change legally and peacefully through the ballot box.
I used to think like you, but living in a country where the far right is about to come to power, and seeing fundamental freedoms disappear by the day, I've understood why people believe that parties like Reform and AFD (and many other parties, who resemble each other as much in their ideology as in their links with Russia, a useful signal) have to be stopped in their tracks while there's a chance, and if we find ourselves in a 'first they came for the far-right' type of situation, that's a bridge we'll have time to think about later.
The normalisation of fascism, the criminalisation of resistance or even of protests, all the way to the boot stomping on your face, all those things appear so fast, too fast to react. So I can see why one would prefer to take the rights of far-right politicians away. If Corbyn came to power and witchhunted Reform, I would think much less of Corbyn but I'd still understand why others would cheer on that.
And when it comes to Palestine Action, they did the kind of violent crimes that I hope will be taught to future generations, same as we taught about resistance in WWII. I and everyone else support Palestine Action not because of the old women, but because they did burglary and vandalism against a terrorist state carrying out genocide. Sunshine and rainbows.
If you were paying attention, you'd see that Reform are predictably self-destructing due to their racism, jingoism, corruption, misogyny, governance, indiscipline and exposure of their lies to the public.
Dominic Cummings at best is a male Ayn Rand, decrying, denouncing and challenging everything but happy to accept largesse or break the rules as it suits him. I quite like him, as it goes.
I think Dominic Cummings is analogous to the stereotypical developer with the brain the size of a planet who never accomplishes much in a team/company because he is bad at working with and through other people.
I think Reform are self-destructing in part due to re-hiring Tory ministers responsible for the awful state of the country.
I don't think so either. We have some crazy ideological forces at play right now and you're told it's bad to not support people burning cities down, but you're told that by people who don't work, while you're working 80 hour weeks
We have to stop being afraid of having our own opinions
> "Indeed, party sources told the media that although the leaked emails appeared to be authentic, the AI-generated summaries appeared to contain several inaccuracies."
Which is why I'm so confused that they did this instead of just publishing a "best hits" of excerpts or something, if the amount of content was an issue
> It is about a party exclusion procedure against an AfD district executive who is said to have expressed Holocaust denial and glorification of Hitler. About a local leader who had to resign because of a "Heil Hitler" Christmas card, or about a member who is said to have written about "Muslims" and the "dirty monster Merkel". Another documented email subject is: "Sale of swastika flags and drugs at the information booth in Bottrop by district board member - measures required."
So it's all about the party correctly applying procedures to keep out the people supposed to make up too large a portion of the party?
We are in an era now where media publish leaks without having gone to the effort of compiling the facts into a story, just AI summaries. And in past cases where there have been revelations with even global significance, we get silence from authorities too.
Maybe there's a better write up somewhere, or a month wasn't sufficient for media to work through it all, but I just got a bad Groundhog Day kind of vibe from the vagueness in that article. Is this what news is now? All the information, none of the journalism, none of the consequences.
Well this is an emerging story, there may be more here.
The Corbyn case was transparently a factional fight with pro-banker neoliberal faction (Mandelson). It was a rallying cry for likeminded people to organise against him with a more respectable excuse for dislike of his policies than 'it might upset bankers'. That's essentially public record now, thanks to Epstein.
There are still some good hackers left. Hopefully this will send in place a party-shutdown procedure, because their voters don't care about already their apparent connections to Putin and Nazis. They have been grown on pure hate and 'protest against the system', and when they are in power, their voters will find out that they are much much more corrupt and uninterested in the public good than anything they claim the current 'establishment' would be. Exact same trajectory as pre WWII.
The limiting factor on a party’s ability to operate should be public support, not political permission. This is basic Democracy. If not, you’re giving those in power the authority to decide which political views are allowed to exist. That's Authoritarianism.
The power to determine which political groups can exist is itself anti-Democratic. People can debate if the AfD is anti-Democratic or not but if they are not allowed to exist, then the government is already anti-Democratic.
There is no such system as "political permission". Everyone is able to found a party. But of course any party has to act within the law, especially the constitution. Thus, the high court can, in a complex proceeding ban parties which are violating the constitution by their actions or even plan to overthrow the constitution.
"Political permission", oh my. It's like this "Altparteien" crap. Spooky language.
> Authoritarianism.
Capitalizing it randomly doesn't make that less projection. You think just because n% support a party that wants to abolish democracy for whatever reason, that party MuST be allowed. And if enough people support Trump being above the law, he should be. And if enough people get sick, they're suddenly healthy. That's not how anything works, not even remotely.
> Hopefully this will send in place a party-shutdown procedure, because their voters don't care about already their apparent connections to Putin and Nazis
You are talking down to up to 40% of certain areas in Germany, convinced you know better and that hey are all either nazis or too dumb to recognise they're voting for them.
There are provisions in the German federal and state constitution and law that are there to actively combat anti-constitutinal activity. These are lessons from the Weimar Republic. 1% or 50%, does not matter. Either you play by the rules of the game, or you risk being exposed to the sanctions that be.
I don't think that popularity should factor into the consideration of a ban. Lots of objectively bad ideas can trend for a while which is why modern democracies emphasize constitutionalism and institutionalism. Would you not, for instance, have advocated for a ban of the NSDAP even in 1933 knowing the consequences?
Yes, had the consequences been known that would have been a good idea. The same is true for the Bolshevik party in Russia, Mao's communist party in China, Chavez's party in Venezuela, Castro's in Cuba, Pol Pot's in Cambodia, Khomeini should never have been allowed back in Iran, Lenin should never have been allowed back into Russia, etcetera. Hindsight is always 20/20 but that does not help when deciding which parties are allowed to partake of the democratic process.
AfD is a right-wing nationalist party which - like many if not most right-wing parties - does have its cadre of people with more extreme views. There'll be right-wing extremists in CDU/CSU (Christian democrats and Christian social union) as well but far fewer than in AfD since that party is more right-wing than CDU and CSU.
The same is true for left-wing parties like the communist party which calls itself 'Die Linke' where you'll find a large host of extremists. It also happens to be the party which under another name was responsible for the Stalinist government of what was ironically called the 'German Democratic Republic', three words with only one - German - being truthful. The same goes for Die Grünen (the greens) which is a far-left party grown out of the environmentalist movement which has taken up the 'progressive omnicause' of climate, migration and "palestine" as their leitmotif. You'll find left-wing extremists in the SPD (social democrats) as well but far fewer than in Die Linke and Die Grünen since those parties are further to the left.
As to AfD as a party being "far-right", well... not really. Their program isn't extreme right-wing, it mixes centre-right with centre-left policies. Their leader, Alice Weidel isn't extreme right-wing - she'd have to banish herself for being a lesbian in a union with another lesbian which tends to not go over that well in far-right circles. What supposedly makes them "far-right" is the same as which supposedly makes other similar parties in other countries - PVV in the Netherlands, SD in Sweden, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Reform in the UK, RN in France etc. - fit under that category: their stance on migration from mostly non-western, largely islamic countries. They oppose such migration because they consider the large influx of people who either do not want to assimilate or integrate or, even if they wanted to do so can not due to their sheer numbers as a threat to their cultures and societies. Many people agree with these positions which has given these parties a boost and often brought them into significant minority to actual majority positions. This is seen as a threat by those who consider immigration from those regions and cultures to be necessary for some reason - Protestant Christian idealism, import of new voters to replace the traditional workers who moved to AfD and similar parties, payment of some imagined debt of honour related to historical colonialism, import of conflicting cultures to destabilise society (i.e. 'deconstruction') to make it ready for revolution, etc. - giving rise to the application of labels like "far-right" - especially powerful in a country like Germany which has been ruled by extremists (left and right) before with disastrous results for both the country as well as the world - to dissuade people from voting for them. Since these groups tend to have control over most of the mass media they have used them to try to convince the populace that these parties need to be banished, forbidden, excluded and shunned.
What these "progressives" do not seem to have counted with is the strong rise of such parties every time they urged them to be excluded, disbanded or forbidden. Disbanding a party which only gets a few votes is doable given the control these groups have over the mass media. Doing the same to a party which gets 1/3 of the vote is a wholly different thing and raises the question who is the more "extreme", the "progressives" who want to use what are considered to be "Soviet-style" tactics to get rid of their opposition or the parties threatened with banishment? It gets even more fraught with error when those "progressives" call for the protection of "Our Democracy". Whose democracy is it, who is the "δῆμος" (dèmos, ancient Greek for "ordinary citizens" or "common people") they're talking about? If those ordinary citizens want to vote the opposition into power should they be allowed to do so? The answer is clearly "yes" for those who take the word Democracy seriously but just as clearly "no" for those who consider their own ideology more important than the will of the masses. These "progressives" often claim that once parties like AfD come into power they'll get rid of "Our Democracy" as a justification why they should not be allowed to participate in elections and, should they happen to have been able to do so and won a large number of votes their representatives should be excluded from any and all positions of power. Again, Quo Vadis, Democratia?
Even if the risk were real, should a democracy be allowed to vote itself out of existence by handing over power to one of the extremist groups whether those be far-right, far-left, islamic or otherwise? Is Popper's paradox of tolerance for the intolerant to be ignored?
Yes. All the parties you listed are similar: ties to Russia, members that are literal neo-nazis, ridiculous views that contradict both history and science, anti-EU, anti-Ukraine, anti-media and blaming problems on immigrants without offering any solutions to problems that actually matter.
Comparing the AfD to the Green Party is a dramatic false equivalence. Thank you for quoting Popper, it’s the best argument for banning the AfD. They are not labelled “far-right” to dissuade people from voting for them, they are far-right because their inane views are so far from what is currently considered the political centre (which has shifted to the right HARD in the last decades).
>Yes, had the consequences been known that would have been a good idea.
Yes, but only because the government that was in power at the time. It would have been a bad idea to ban the NSDAP if the government in power was far worse than the NSDAP. You can never justify granting that power simply by pointing to an exceptionally bad party.
I have to point out the irony of posting this diatribe under a post about a data leak that seems to pretty much confirm many of the assessments that have been made about the AfD being more than just another right-wing party.
Two things can be true simultaneously. As in, those AfD-voters-who-aren’t-racist-or-actual-Nazis have legitimate reasons to be angry at mainstream politicians and want meaningful change, and they’re making a bad choice to support the AfD in their desperation.
That isn't, at all, what GP said, and the perpetual seeking of fake victimhood by y'all is so deeply boring and performative.
But hey, if 40% of people are dumber than the median, then I guess you've uncovered basic statistics. So that's something. Come on, give me a nice 'but what about' now - keep to the script. We all know nothing original or insightful is coming.
Maybe it has nothing to do with the voters directly. This might frighten some of the backers who thought they would remain anonymous. When you shine a light into a dark corner, the roaches scatter.
When the state holds the biggest light and has the darkest corners, you really have to question which one are the real roaches
If we think that those in power don't also have secrets and skeletons then perhaps we're not thinking at all.
Instead of trying to play kill the character all the time, we should be focusing on pragmatic solutions to domestic and regional problems. But that would require people not being afraid of cancel culture and politics not being so toxic that good people stay well away.
I think the voters, at least some part the voters, would be more reluctant to engage online due to this type of leak. Other than that, they'd continue with their convictions as before.
They should look at the current state of their country, look at the policies of the various parties, and select the party that in their judgement would move the country in the direction think it should move.
I know this is bait, but maybe their reaction should be to go and vote so that the persons who think rape should be OK (as per leaked e-mails btw) don't get to decide?
That doesn't seem comparable. The DNC and RNC were hacked by different actors.
My point was that this news is of the hack, and not of bombshell revelations from the emails themselves, which kind of indicates there's nothing there.
If you found the smoking gun, you would say "look I found a smoking gun!".
> right wing has been the normal ideology for most of human history, real democracy is/has center-right views
Before you make such a bold claim you might want to consider that there isn't even a very stable definition of right and left wing throughout history.
When peasants lived in a feudal states, did they have left/right views? Or did they their political opinions actually matter because the only people who had any control were the Lords above them (who more than likely did have a more modern 'right wing' attitude).
And all the things you listed as proof are what AfD is firmly against. You also forgot gay couples having children as something that should be allowed only to the party leadership.
The BitDefender article immediately goes of with labeling AfD as far-right. This is going on all over Europe when a party is against mass-immigration and "sponsoring Ukraine till the last Ukrainian". And at the same time the streets in EU's big cities look worse than ever: unsafer, uncleaner and more un-European than ever before. Immigration is not good for us, and receiving a label "extreme rightwing" (and Fascist, and Nazi) simply because you want it to stop is loosing it's power... I dont mind to be called as such anymore (and I used to even call others this label).
In European vocabulary these "anti immigration of economically not-useful people" parties are not very rightwing: they are in favor of keeping the social benefit programs alive (that's why they want immigration of such people to stop).
What nonsense! The AfD is not just “far-right”, it is (objectively!) an extremist, anti-democratic organisation and it is frankly insane that it has not been banned yet. The Economist disgraced itself by platforming someone as odious as Weidel, and in general, the media is complicit in giving a fringe party so much airtime.
You might have lost your shame, and I am sorry for you, but I assure you that the overwhelming majority of Europeans just sadly regret that people with such ridiculous views have become emboldened.
As for Ukraine: if you don’t believe that European freedom is defended there, I am not sure how to convince you, maybe an Estonian could.
That's because the AfD is far right, of the worst possible kind. Their members keep using Nazi and even SS propaganda, excusing Nazi and SS actions during WW2, ... (SS was Hitler's private security service, the people actually executing the holocaust), they openly discuss adopting a version of Nazi ancestry laws, ... you know, I'll make a list
* Prominent AfD figures promote a "völkisch" concept of German identity based on ancestry rather than citizenship, and propose to make laws based on this introducing what is generally referred to as "apartheid": 2 different legal statuses for German (and European) citizens based on ancestry
* The AfD "promotes remigration" (mass deportation) with some members supporting proposals that woud mass-deport German citizens. AfD figures attended the 2023 Potsdam meeting where far-right activists discussed controversial "remigration" proposals (meaning they discussed it with actual people loudly proclaiming they are Nazis)
Or how about: they keep getting caught defending Nazis, you know the actual historical party and what they did
* AfD politician Björn Höcke was convicted twice for using "Alles für Deutschland," a banned Nazi SA slogan
* Alexander Gauland described the Nazi era as mere "bird shit" in German history
* Björn Höcke called Berlin's Holocaust memorial a "monument of shame" and demanded a reversal of Germany's remembrance culture
* Maximilian Krah claimed that not all members of the Nazi Waffen-SS were criminals.
* More general, AfD politicians have maintained documented links to far-right nationalist movements (meaning actual groups calling themselves publicly Nazis)
People that have this as a job keep accusing, sometimes with VERY worrying proof, parts and people of the party of being Nazis
* Several AfD state branches have been classified as confirmed right-wing extremist by German constitutional-protection authorities
* "Junge Alternative", was classified as confirmed right-wing extremist by German intelligence
* Police arrested eight suspected members of the "Saxon Separatists," including an AfD local politician, over allegations that the group planned to use violence to establish a territory based on Nazi ideology
* Police raided AfD district politician Philip Steinbeck's property and discovered firearms, including reportedly fully automatic WWII weapons, and substantial quantities of explosives
THAT, and other reasons, is why AfD is described as extreme right. It's not that other parties don't get into controversies, but nothing remotely close to this, plus it keeps repeating.
Far right means hate extremists more than anything. As in, you can't call them nazis or racists until you have proof you can take to the congress (?) to get the party disbarred.
> What is unusual is that the leaked emails are not published on the site directly. Instead, AI-generated summaries are shown, categorised and rated from Low to Critical.
Interesting choice. I don't feel like I'm at the comfort level where I would really trust any of those summaries - although I can respect the reasoning behind it.
I assume because of the high quantity they try to protect individual's privacy that way. Otherwise going by hand through each email would take years for PII and other links redaction.
Why would or should their privacy be a concern of theirs in the first place? It's a leak.
Because the leakers might have ethical standards? Same as with snowden not dumping everything directly and letting journalists scrub it first. None of this actually applies though because everything (supposedly) got leaked in the torrent.
Also maybe somebody learned a lesson after burning Reality Winner for dumping the raw material directly? Am I being naive that is a possibility?
the leak is much more then emails, e.g. it includes a lot of donations, members in certain regional groups etc.
it also dates back to the funding times of the AfD at which point the AfD had not yet been clearly right radical, but a side publishing it might very well be scanned by bots and then someone decent who was shortly a member during the early days and left due realizing this is going in a very bad direction might "permanently" be described as AfD member or similar in search, agent questions, e.g. done when they look for a new job
but I think the more relevant point here is probably the reduction of legal consequences and I wouldn't be surprised if whoever provided the site and the hacker are two different entities
lastly this seem to have been an exceedingly trivial but AI supported hack, so there is some chance the was done by a young and very inexperienced person who got more then they bargained for and try to somehow balance personal risk with the hope that this helps with convincing more people how bad the AfD is or similar
either-way multiple new sites and other sources have downloaded the sources and verified random samples where possible and it seem the dump is actually fully authentic
Shady politicians are some of the quickest individuals to jump to lawsuit threats.
So the leakers may have already been under some pressure to not end up in jail for doing the right thing.
I don't think there is much difference in the crime committed.
But intend can matter if you are caught can influence where in the possible range of penalties the judge will judge you.
There is also a chance the site provider and actual hacker/torrent provider are not the same person, in which case if they go after the site provider they could argue they just did automatized journalistic work with reasonable journalistic standards (not sure if that will work, but it would be worth a try; also only relevant if they are two different people).
Lastly the hacker might be very inexperienced/didn't really expect much success which also could explain the current outcome.
There is also the point that a website might be indexed by bots/search engines, the torrent might not and this could cause some problems. E.g. very very early one the AfD was not yet clear right radical and the mails date back to this time. If someone hat interactions with them only then but now get indexed by some search/ai which lets say an employer uses to screen hires this could have very bad consequences for that person without them having done anything wrong (if their connection to it really was only during the very very early days).
That's a weird take? It's entirely plausible to think that some of the info should be in the public (illegal stuff, prove of bad character, what's their strategy etc.) but not every PII in it? Like bank accounts, private addresses, private photos.
Probably because the leaker is actually the state, and in case the fact is discovered, they want to be protected against privacy violation lawsuits.
No, the full original emails are available via torrent.
The hackers must be German (Datenschutz). :)
I think they could've redacted using a small model like OpenAI's privacy-filter model instead of rewriting.
I think You can download the raw emails via BitTorrent...
yes and more or less all respectable news reporting in Germany is done based on the raw sources
but this AI summaries have been a mistake as now the AfD will with some degree of success go around claiming that anything bad is supposedly AI generated, even if it very clearly isn't
I also worry that the AI summaries might miss out on some of or a lot of the "wink wink nudge nudge" parts of their interactions.
Youre absolutely right. The fascist and de humanizing content might just as well be hallucinated. /s
An email states wishes to make hand bag leather from refuge skin.
But yeah, the leak basically reports forks found in a kitchen, nothing new.
>Youre absolutely right. The fascist and de humanizing content might just as well be hallucinated. /s
It might not be entirely hallucinated, but it's still a real concern given all the discussions about the AfD inevitably gets filled with people engaging in motte-and-bailey tactics. For instance, are the AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)? In cases like these rough summaries inevitably mangle the exact policy positions, which might make them look better/worse than they actually are. You might think "AfD are fascists anyways, who cares if their positions get mangled?", but that's terrible epistemics.
/s stands for sarcasm
most things aren't hallucinated
and the original is available for download via torrent and most newspapers etc. have based their reporting on this
> AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution
a huge part of the people currently in leading position had been in organizations which where so extrema radical and anti-constitutional that they have been force dissolved which has a very high legal burden to happen. This includes organizations which where out right Neo-Nazi organizations celebrating Hitler and what he did (but also many other not neo-nazi but not any less dangerous organizations/movement)
> (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)?
concretely defined because many of their members have been in neo nazi and other similar bad organizations which have been force desolved
and because they have very openly represented values which are against most of the extra protected/valued part of the German constitution, including in no specific order
- very publicly being against woman rights in many cases and forms, including in speeches hold in the "senate" (Bundestag)
- not "just" being against immigrants, but dehumanizing them and calling for violence against them
- their publicized anti immigration plans also go beyond immigrants seem to want to kick out anyone with different ethnicity no matter if they have grown up as a German Citizen. Sure they are a bit more vague about this, but it's the only way their numbers about people they want to kick out add up.
- campaigning for wanting to remove some of the check and balances in the constitution against extremist populist takeover
- publicly downplaying anti-semitic terrorist attacks
- lets also not forget stuff like that they just recently tried to conspire with the BSW to prevent elected CDU officials from taking part ins some votes
to just name a very small fraction of what they did.
Nothing there is "vague", or "maybe this are just some people" or anything like this. This party is _very clear cut_ a threat to German constitution even if this might not apply to every single member of it.
If you apply the same standards as for the process against the NPD the AfD would have been dissolved by now.
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Where "hackers" = "security services".
The same will happen to Reform/Restore in the UK.
"Dominic Cummings warned on The Spectator's Quite Right! podcast that Whitehall and the civil service would resort to illegal tactics—such as leaking confidential medical and tax records or bugging phones—to prevent Nigel Farage and Reform UK from gaining power."
>Dominic Mckenzie Cummings (born 25 November 1971) is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until he resigned on 13 November 2020.[1]
Why should we care about a former government advisor who resigned 6 years ago, and isn't even in the same party as the government in power?
edit: retracted the "resigned in disgrace" part
A) He's been closer to the levers of power than probably either of us, so would have a better view of how it would work and b) he didn't resign in disgrace.
>A) He's been closer to the levers of power than probably either of us, so would have a better view of how it would work and
But that's not an infinite excuse to extrapolate from one person's statement to the whole of uk political establishment. Not to mention he's not a totally neutral party either. According to wikipedia he's against the conservative party and supports Reform UK.
"In 2025 he dropped calls for the creation of a start-up party to replace the Tories and in a blog post in March talked up Reform UK."
> b) he didn't resign in disgrace.
You're right. I edited my comment.
I'd like to hope so, but the security services have been remarkably relaxed about the far right and focus all their energy on environmentalists and little old ladies holding up "Palestine Action" signs.
Or they could just let people vote for the party they agree with? Whether that party favours Palestine or limited immigration or whatever their policy is.
Why would you "like to hope so"? The same laws should exist for everyone and that includes agents of the state.
As for people supporting "Palestine Action", activists always have their most sympathetic looking members e.g. elderly women to have arrested as it makes the authorities look worse.
Palestine Action have done at least two violent crimes and several hundred other offences including burglary, vandalism.
Just because people have the politics you like doesn't mean they are all sunshine and rainbows.
The Reform/Restore parties you dislike are pursuing change legally and peacefully through the ballot box.
I used to think like you, but living in a country where the far right is about to come to power, and seeing fundamental freedoms disappear by the day, I've understood why people believe that parties like Reform and AFD (and many other parties, who resemble each other as much in their ideology as in their links with Russia, a useful signal) have to be stopped in their tracks while there's a chance, and if we find ourselves in a 'first they came for the far-right' type of situation, that's a bridge we'll have time to think about later.
The normalisation of fascism, the criminalisation of resistance or even of protests, all the way to the boot stomping on your face, all those things appear so fast, too fast to react. So I can see why one would prefer to take the rights of far-right politicians away. If Corbyn came to power and witchhunted Reform, I would think much less of Corbyn but I'd still understand why others would cheer on that.
And when it comes to Palestine Action, they did the kind of violent crimes that I hope will be taught to future generations, same as we taught about resistance in WWII. I and everyone else support Palestine Action not because of the old women, but because they did burglary and vandalism against a terrorist state carrying out genocide. Sunshine and rainbows.
>>Links with Russia
Yeah, those are all 100% genuine, nothing made up there. Completely legit.
They don't need to. Farage's support is plummeting.
It going to split the conservative vote and they are still likely to come up better than the conservatives in voter share but lose on seats.
ok
If you were paying attention, you'd see that Reform are predictably self-destructing due to their racism, jingoism, corruption, misogyny, governance, indiscipline and exposure of their lies to the public.
Dominic Cummings at best is a male Ayn Rand, decrying, denouncing and challenging everything but happy to accept largesse or break the rules as it suits him. I quite like him, as it goes.
I think Dominic Cummings is analogous to the stereotypical developer with the brain the size of a planet who never accomplishes much in a team/company because he is bad at working with and through other people.
I think Reform are self-destructing in part due to re-hiring Tory ministers responsible for the awful state of the country.
I don't think it will work at all.
I don't think so either. We have some crazy ideological forces at play right now and you're told it's bad to not support people burning cities down, but you're told that by people who don't work, while you're working 80 hour weeks
We have to stop being afraid of having our own opinions
> "Indeed, party sources told the media that although the leaked emails appeared to be authentic, the AI-generated summaries appeared to contain several inaccuracies."
Which is why I'm so confused that they did this instead of just publishing a "best hits" of excerpts or something, if the amount of content was an issue
They are protecting themself, because of german law.
Edit: There is also personal data in that leak, so that needs to be cleaned first.
They should just make it illegal for people to vote for certain parties and this problem is solved.
They are indeed trying to outlaw AfD. I imagine this leak might help with that.
Which would be excellent news for both Germany and Europe.
Sure, if all you want to do is watch Europe continue to spiral down the shitter.
They could make it even easier and give you only one party to choose!
They should make a list of all Afd members. Maybe make them wear something that identifies them as Afd.
It's a bit overrun with all the traffic, but someones made a "jmail" style interface / webapp for this as well haha
https://goebbelmail.com
From google translate of TFA's link https://taz.de/Website-veroeffentlicht-tausende-Mails/!62228...
> It is about a party exclusion procedure against an AfD district executive who is said to have expressed Holocaust denial and glorification of Hitler. About a local leader who had to resign because of a "Heil Hitler" Christmas card, or about a member who is said to have written about "Muslims" and the "dirty monster Merkel". Another documented email subject is: "Sale of swastika flags and drugs at the information booth in Bottrop by district board member - measures required."
So it's all about the party correctly applying procedures to keep out the people supposed to make up too large a portion of the party?
We are in an era now where media publish leaks without having gone to the effort of compiling the facts into a story, just AI summaries. And in past cases where there have been revelations with even global significance, we get silence from authorities too.
Maybe there's a better write up somewhere, or a month wasn't sufficient for media to work through it all, but I just got a bad Groundhog Day kind of vibe from the vagueness in that article. Is this what news is now? All the information, none of the journalism, none of the consequences.
> So it's all about the party correctly applying procedures to keep out the people supposed to make up too large a portion of the party?
This was, bizarrely, the same line of attack used against Corbyn, for being "insufficiently against" anti-semitism.
Well this is an emerging story, there may be more here.
The Corbyn case was transparently a factional fight with pro-banker neoliberal faction (Mandelson). It was a rallying cry for likeminded people to organise against him with a more respectable excuse for dislike of his policies than 'it might upset bankers'. That's essentially public record now, thanks to Epstein.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157664
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50163502
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50184270
There are still some good hackers left. Hopefully this will send in place a party-shutdown procedure, because their voters don't care about already their apparent connections to Putin and Nazis. They have been grown on pure hate and 'protest against the system', and when they are in power, their voters will find out that they are much much more corrupt and uninterested in the public good than anything they claim the current 'establishment' would be. Exact same trajectory as pre WWII.
> Hopefully this will send in place a party-shutdown procedure
Let's save democracy by abolishing democracy!
Heh. Abolishing parties who vow to destroy it is anything but that.
The limiting factor on a party’s ability to operate should be public support, not political permission. This is basic Democracy. If not, you’re giving those in power the authority to decide which political views are allowed to exist. That's Authoritarianism.
If a party expressed anti-democratic goals, protecting them by the social compact of democracy is stupid.
Look how well that idea worked out in Turkey. Authoritarian movements use democracy like a train and get off when they get power
The power to determine which political groups can exist is itself anti-Democratic. People can debate if the AfD is anti-Democratic or not but if they are not allowed to exist, then the government is already anti-Democratic.
There is no such system as "political permission". Everyone is able to found a party. But of course any party has to act within the law, especially the constitution. Thus, the high court can, in a complex proceeding ban parties which are violating the constitution by their actions or even plan to overthrow the constitution.
"Political permission", oh my. It's like this "Altparteien" crap. Spooky language.
> Authoritarianism.
Capitalizing it randomly doesn't make that less projection. You think just because n% support a party that wants to abolish democracy for whatever reason, that party MuST be allowed. And if enough people support Trump being above the law, he should be. And if enough people get sick, they're suddenly healthy. That's not how anything works, not even remotely.
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> Hopefully this will send in place a party-shutdown procedure, because their voters don't care about already their apparent connections to Putin and Nazis
You are talking down to up to 40% of certain areas in Germany, convinced you know better and that hey are all either nazis or too dumb to recognise they're voting for them.
Quo Vadis, Democratia? Ask mentalgear...
There are provisions in the German federal and state constitution and law that are there to actively combat anti-constitutinal activity. These are lessons from the Weimar Republic. 1% or 50%, does not matter. Either you play by the rules of the game, or you risk being exposed to the sanctions that be.
I don't think that popularity should factor into the consideration of a ban. Lots of objectively bad ideas can trend for a while which is why modern democracies emphasize constitutionalism and institutionalism. Would you not, for instance, have advocated for a ban of the NSDAP even in 1933 knowing the consequences?
Yes, had the consequences been known that would have been a good idea. The same is true for the Bolshevik party in Russia, Mao's communist party in China, Chavez's party in Venezuela, Castro's in Cuba, Pol Pot's in Cambodia, Khomeini should never have been allowed back in Iran, Lenin should never have been allowed back into Russia, etcetera. Hindsight is always 20/20 but that does not help when deciding which parties are allowed to partake of the democratic process.
AfD is a right-wing nationalist party which - like many if not most right-wing parties - does have its cadre of people with more extreme views. There'll be right-wing extremists in CDU/CSU (Christian democrats and Christian social union) as well but far fewer than in AfD since that party is more right-wing than CDU and CSU.
The same is true for left-wing parties like the communist party which calls itself 'Die Linke' where you'll find a large host of extremists. It also happens to be the party which under another name was responsible for the Stalinist government of what was ironically called the 'German Democratic Republic', three words with only one - German - being truthful. The same goes for Die Grünen (the greens) which is a far-left party grown out of the environmentalist movement which has taken up the 'progressive omnicause' of climate, migration and "palestine" as their leitmotif. You'll find left-wing extremists in the SPD (social democrats) as well but far fewer than in Die Linke and Die Grünen since those parties are further to the left.
As to AfD as a party being "far-right", well... not really. Their program isn't extreme right-wing, it mixes centre-right with centre-left policies. Their leader, Alice Weidel isn't extreme right-wing - she'd have to banish herself for being a lesbian in a union with another lesbian which tends to not go over that well in far-right circles. What supposedly makes them "far-right" is the same as which supposedly makes other similar parties in other countries - PVV in the Netherlands, SD in Sweden, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Reform in the UK, RN in France etc. - fit under that category: their stance on migration from mostly non-western, largely islamic countries. They oppose such migration because they consider the large influx of people who either do not want to assimilate or integrate or, even if they wanted to do so can not due to their sheer numbers as a threat to their cultures and societies. Many people agree with these positions which has given these parties a boost and often brought them into significant minority to actual majority positions. This is seen as a threat by those who consider immigration from those regions and cultures to be necessary for some reason - Protestant Christian idealism, import of new voters to replace the traditional workers who moved to AfD and similar parties, payment of some imagined debt of honour related to historical colonialism, import of conflicting cultures to destabilise society (i.e. 'deconstruction') to make it ready for revolution, etc. - giving rise to the application of labels like "far-right" - especially powerful in a country like Germany which has been ruled by extremists (left and right) before with disastrous results for both the country as well as the world - to dissuade people from voting for them. Since these groups tend to have control over most of the mass media they have used them to try to convince the populace that these parties need to be banished, forbidden, excluded and shunned.
What these "progressives" do not seem to have counted with is the strong rise of such parties every time they urged them to be excluded, disbanded or forbidden. Disbanding a party which only gets a few votes is doable given the control these groups have over the mass media. Doing the same to a party which gets 1/3 of the vote is a wholly different thing and raises the question who is the more "extreme", the "progressives" who want to use what are considered to be "Soviet-style" tactics to get rid of their opposition or the parties threatened with banishment? It gets even more fraught with error when those "progressives" call for the protection of "Our Democracy". Whose democracy is it, who is the "δῆμος" (dèmos, ancient Greek for "ordinary citizens" or "common people") they're talking about? If those ordinary citizens want to vote the opposition into power should they be allowed to do so? The answer is clearly "yes" for those who take the word Democracy seriously but just as clearly "no" for those who consider their own ideology more important than the will of the masses. These "progressives" often claim that once parties like AfD come into power they'll get rid of "Our Democracy" as a justification why they should not be allowed to participate in elections and, should they happen to have been able to do so and won a large number of votes their representatives should be excluded from any and all positions of power. Again, Quo Vadis, Democratia?
Even if the risk were real, should a democracy be allowed to vote itself out of existence by handing over power to one of the extremist groups whether those be far-right, far-left, islamic or otherwise? Is Popper's paradox of tolerance for the intolerant to be ignored?
Yes. All the parties you listed are similar: ties to Russia, members that are literal neo-nazis, ridiculous views that contradict both history and science, anti-EU, anti-Ukraine, anti-media and blaming problems on immigrants without offering any solutions to problems that actually matter.
Comparing the AfD to the Green Party is a dramatic false equivalence. Thank you for quoting Popper, it’s the best argument for banning the AfD. They are not labelled “far-right” to dissuade people from voting for them, they are far-right because their inane views are so far from what is currently considered the political centre (which has shifted to the right HARD in the last decades).
>Yes, had the consequences been known that would have been a good idea.
Yes, but only because the government that was in power at the time. It would have been a bad idea to ban the NSDAP if the government in power was far worse than the NSDAP. You can never justify granting that power simply by pointing to an exceptionally bad party.
I have to point out the irony of posting this diatribe under a post about a data leak that seems to pretty much confirm many of the assessments that have been made about the AfD being more than just another right-wing party.
Two things can be true simultaneously. As in, those AfD-voters-who-aren’t-racist-or-actual-Nazis have legitimate reasons to be angry at mainstream politicians and want meaningful change, and they’re making a bad choice to support the AfD in their desperation.
It's up to them, no? How do you know more than them?
> and that hey are all either nazis
That isn't, at all, what GP said, and the perpetual seeking of fake victimhood by y'all is so deeply boring and performative.
But hey, if 40% of people are dumber than the median, then I guess you've uncovered basic statistics. So that's something. Come on, give me a nice 'but what about' now - keep to the script. We all know nothing original or insightful is coming.
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Sadly, we're in the tribalism era where it doesn't matter in the sligtest to the voters.
Maybe it has nothing to do with the voters directly. This might frighten some of the backers who thought they would remain anonymous. When you shine a light into a dark corner, the roaches scatter.
When the state holds the biggest light and has the darkest corners, you really have to question which one are the real roaches
If we think that those in power don't also have secrets and skeletons then perhaps we're not thinking at all.
Instead of trying to play kill the character all the time, we should be focusing on pragmatic solutions to domestic and regional problems. But that would require people not being afraid of cancel culture and politics not being so toxic that good people stay well away.
I think if you buy into the idea of cancel culture is a real thing, you’ve already lost the plot.
Cancel culture alive and well.
What do you think the reaction of voters ought to be?
I think the voters, at least some part the voters, would be more reluctant to engage online due to this type of leak. Other than that, they'd continue with their convictions as before.
They should look at the current state of their country, look at the policies of the various parties, and select the party that in their judgement would move the country in the direction think it should move.
I know this is bait, but maybe their reaction should be to go and vote so that the persons who think rape should be OK (as per leaked e-mails btw) don't get to decide?
If we're blaming the victim for being hacked, shouldn't we blame the DNC too?
For their behind closed door conduct? Yes... act on that information how you will.
For getting hacked? No (other than judging the technical team competency).
Same applies here.
Do remember though that the RNC was also hacked at the same time as the DNC, but only one was released right before the election.
That doesn't seem comparable. The DNC and RNC were hacked by different actors.
My point was that this news is of the hack, and not of bombshell revelations from the emails themselves, which kind of indicates there's nothing there.
If you found the smoking gun, you would say "look I found a smoking gun!".
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> right wing has been the normal ideology for most of human history, real democracy is/has center-right views
Before you make such a bold claim you might want to consider that there isn't even a very stable definition of right and left wing throughout history.
When peasants lived in a feudal states, did they have left/right views? Or did they their political opinions actually matter because the only people who had any control were the Lords above them (who more than likely did have a more modern 'right wing' attitude).
I don't care which wing the party is, if a foreign state sponsors you, that's a treason.
Sure. So who are you voting for?
What?
Why is this sad? Being the victim of a crime shouldn't matter to voters.
Rewarding people for being victims just incentivizes frailty.
"far right party" it's candidate is a lesbian woman married to a foreign person come on now. Nothing far right about the afd.
And all the things you listed as proof are what AfD is firmly against. You also forgot gay couples having children as something that should be allowed only to the party leadership.
It's incongruent to have the afds leader be all these things and still call them far right.
Not at all. It just makes her a hypocrite.
No, it isn't. It only says a lot about the lack of clear judgement by a lot of party members.
These emails may be real. But that's yet to be confirmed.
Yesterday The Economist interviewed AfD's leader, in proper English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cGGDu8sgXY
The BitDefender article immediately goes of with labeling AfD as far-right. This is going on all over Europe when a party is against mass-immigration and "sponsoring Ukraine till the last Ukrainian". And at the same time the streets in EU's big cities look worse than ever: unsafer, uncleaner and more un-European than ever before. Immigration is not good for us, and receiving a label "extreme rightwing" (and Fascist, and Nazi) simply because you want it to stop is loosing it's power... I dont mind to be called as such anymore (and I used to even call others this label).
In European vocabulary these "anti immigration of economically not-useful people" parties are not very rightwing: they are in favor of keeping the social benefit programs alive (that's why they want immigration of such people to stop).
Where's that post-Brexit windfall of cash for the NHS? It's still coming, right?
The mail, which are not confirmed to be real, however show a fascist party. Not just far right, like the German CDU/CSU
What nonsense! The AfD is not just “far-right”, it is (objectively!) an extremist, anti-democratic organisation and it is frankly insane that it has not been banned yet. The Economist disgraced itself by platforming someone as odious as Weidel, and in general, the media is complicit in giving a fringe party so much airtime.
You might have lost your shame, and I am sorry for you, but I assure you that the overwhelming majority of Europeans just sadly regret that people with such ridiculous views have become emboldened.
As for Ukraine: if you don’t believe that European freedom is defended there, I am not sure how to convince you, maybe an Estonian could.
> economically not-useful people
Ah yes, "useless eaters" (or in German, "nutzlose Esser"), you might even say!
Now where have I heard that before...?
That's because the AfD is far right, of the worst possible kind. Their members keep using Nazi and even SS propaganda, excusing Nazi and SS actions during WW2, ... (SS was Hitler's private security service, the people actually executing the holocaust), they openly discuss adopting a version of Nazi ancestry laws, ... you know, I'll make a list
* Prominent AfD figures promote a "völkisch" concept of German identity based on ancestry rather than citizenship, and propose to make laws based on this introducing what is generally referred to as "apartheid": 2 different legal statuses for German (and European) citizens based on ancestry
* The AfD "promotes remigration" (mass deportation) with some members supporting proposals that woud mass-deport German citizens. AfD figures attended the 2023 Potsdam meeting where far-right activists discussed controversial "remigration" proposals (meaning they discussed it with actual people loudly proclaiming they are Nazis)
Or how about: they keep getting caught defending Nazis, you know the actual historical party and what they did
* AfD politician Björn Höcke was convicted twice for using "Alles für Deutschland," a banned Nazi SA slogan
* Alexander Gauland described the Nazi era as mere "bird shit" in German history
* Björn Höcke called Berlin's Holocaust memorial a "monument of shame" and demanded a reversal of Germany's remembrance culture
* Maximilian Krah claimed that not all members of the Nazi Waffen-SS were criminals.
* More general, AfD politicians have maintained documented links to far-right nationalist movements (meaning actual groups calling themselves publicly Nazis)
People that have this as a job keep accusing, sometimes with VERY worrying proof, parts and people of the party of being Nazis
* Several AfD state branches have been classified as confirmed right-wing extremist by German constitutional-protection authorities
* "Junge Alternative", was classified as confirmed right-wing extremist by German intelligence
* Police arrested eight suspected members of the "Saxon Separatists," including an AfD local politician, over allegations that the group planned to use violence to establish a territory based on Nazi ideology
* Police raided AfD district politician Philip Steinbeck's property and discovered firearms, including reportedly fully automatic WWII weapons, and substantial quantities of explosives
THAT, and other reasons, is why AfD is described as extreme right. It's not that other parties don't get into controversies, but nothing remotely close to this, plus it keeps repeating.
Far right means hate extremists more than anything. As in, you can't call them nazis or racists until you have proof you can take to the congress (?) to get the party disbarred.