German far-right rules digital campaign for Europe election

Polls put the far-right Alternative for Germany at less than 15 percent of the vote one week before European elections, but with their relentless Facebook messages, tweets and other social media posts, they’re dominating the other parties online.

Like other right-wing parties in Europe, the party known as AfD is taking a page out of U.S. President Donald Trump’s playbook, skirting a traditional media campaign to focus on a provocative social media effort that has prompted more shares and chatter than anyone else. The key question, though, is whether it can turn the internet buzz into actual votes.

The most successful posts seem to take a kernel of real news and then exaggerate it to raise online indignance and promote the conservative nationalist platform.

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