election-watch.eu

Vienna, Berlin, 9 December 2024: In the recent general elections, Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) secured its position as the largest party in Parliament for the first time. Election-Watch.EU examined the role of Telegram in shaping political discourse during this period in a collaborative effort with data scientists from a renown Austrian research institute, a senior data scientist from data4good and a researcher from the University of Vienna. This project was made possible with the support of Democracy Reporting International (DRI) and the access://democracy project funded by the Mercator Foundation.

The data research resulted in several key insights:

• Channels like Eva Herrmann Offiziel, Oliver Janich, and Uncut News significantly contributed to the spread of narratives that resonated with far-right audiences;
• Toxicity was the most prevalent form of problematic content, followed by hate speech and extremism, which appeared less frequently;
• Some channels, such as auf1TV, exhibited high toxicity but lower levels of hate speech or extremism, reinforcing the need for more tailored content analysis across different platforms;
• Figures like Martin Sellner, a known far-right activist, played a role in amplifying divisive messages.

Austrian general elections, citizen led election observation, data protection in elections, election security, equality, social media monitoring, Telegram