Russian ‘botnet’ promotes far-right messages in German election Researchers say botnet with links to Russia started to promote hashtags on Twitter connected to the AfD over the last 48 hours

An online network of social media accounts linked to Russia is trying to boost messages connected to the far-right Alternative for Germany as the country's voters head to the polls today, according to analysis by the Atlantic Council, a think-tank.

The researchers said that a so-called botnet — a collection of automated accounts that can repost messages quickly to spread them widely online — with links to Russia had started to promote hashtags on Twitter connected to the AfD over the last 48 hours. There had been a significant spike in such online activities, according to the think-tank's Digital Forensic Research Lab, in an effort to boost far-right turnout during the election.

"Its continued amplification of the far-right messaging suggests either that the bot manager is an AfD supporter, or that AfD supporters have paid for a Russian botnet to amplify their messaging," the researchers said in a blogpost in relation to the Russian botnet's activities.

The links between AfD supporters and Russian online groups come as many in Germany remain concerned the country's election may still become a target for digital trickery despite a lack of fake news and other online misinformation so far in the campaign.

German policymakers, publishers and think-tank researchers have been closely monitoring online activity to rebuff digital efforts that already have targeted elections from the United States to France in the last year.

Yet as Twitter — where much of the most recent AfD activity has focused — is a small player in Germany's election campaign (it has roughly one million users in the country versus around 35 million Facebook users), it is unclear whether these latest efforts to boost the far right's messages will affect the election results.