Nela Riehl (Verts/ALE). – Mr President, where do we go when we do not know something? Well – online. For me personally, it's Google, some might also go on TikTok. Particularly for the younger generation, social media platforms are the place to gather information also on politics. Social media is where elections are decided nowadays. We cannot deny this, but we need to respond to this. We need to make sure that this does not compromise the democratic process, that the algorithmic logic of which content does well is not a deciding factor on electoral outcomes.

With TikTok we risk overseeing the Trojan horse coming for our democracy. Yes, parties and politicians should meet people where they are and speak to them in a way they want to be spoken to. But no, that does not mean that facts become relative or that truth is a question of the most clicked video. One first step was the DSA calling out negative effects on elections.

So for the Bundestagswahl: Lasst uns bitte nicht über Haustierverbote und Genderwahn sprechen, sondern über Klimakrise und soziale Gerechtigkeit.