Scroll, Rage, Vote: TikTok as a Hybrid Threat and How the AfD and Die Linke Are Rewiring German Youth Politics

In Germany, a quiet yet rapidly developing hybrid threat is emerging: the smartphone screen. Unlike conventional warfare with tanks and troops, this could be fought with algorithms, anger, and a generation of young voters being drawn towards political extremes. TikTok, a platform owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance and used by more than 20 millions of the German population, has become the most influential space for political persuasion and manipulation in the country, particularly for the youth. It is not the established parties that are winning this battle, it’s the radical fringes, including the far-right “Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)” and the far-left “Die Linke”, which have mastered the art of polarization through the short video messaging format. Analysts are left questioning whether this is merely “savvy” campaigning or a more structurally dangerous form of hybrid threat that no one explicitly voted for.

The Contest for Germany’s Youth Vote

TikTok’s algorithm does not concentrate on showing balanced content. It cares about engagement which is driven by emotions such as anger, fear and tribal identity. “Emotions like anger and fear translate into engagement on TikTok,” explains Julia Ebner, a researcher at the University of Oxford specializing in extremism and online radicalization. “The algorithm favors content that generates strong reactions and prolonged watch time - a built-in advantage for right-wing populist actors.”

The numbers clearly demonstrate this. On TikTok, a staggering 78% of all partisan content shown to German users through the algorithm is pro-AfD. This is not a typical filter bubble, as it doesn’t simply feed AfD supporters more AfD content. A study conducted by the nonprofit organization “AI Forensics” and the think tank “Interface” revealed that in around 25% of cases, users searching for specific political parties on TikTok were presented with suggestions for other parties. In most of these instances, the suggested parties were linked to the AfD. Consequently, a generation of young Germans is being exposed to politics through an algorithm that potentially defaults them to the far right.

Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, dominated in terms of TikTok followers at nearly one million, a well-strategized attempt to personalize and rebrand the AfD’s message through a more approachable figure. Her identity as a lesbian woman with a multiracial family further complicates media stereotypes about the AfD’s rigid conservatism, making her a normalizing agent for the party’s platform, allowing moderate or undecided young users to engage with AfD content without feeling aligned with far-right ideology.

The content itself runs on a simple emotional engine. After the December 2024 Magdeburg Christmas market attack, the AfD deliberately stoked fears about the safety of women and children, a highly emotionalizing tactic that is particularly effective following actual violent incidents. They are visceral, 30-second provocations designed to make young men feel that their country is being taken from them, and that only the AfD sees it.

Research confirms that TikTok use raises support for the AfD and its candidates among younger cohorts, though crucially, it does not seem to cause corresponding shifts in underlying political ideology on issues like immigration. What TikTok creates is not conviction but momentum, a sense of belonging to a movement without necessarily internalizing its full ideology. That is, if anything, more dangerous: voters who feel affiliated with a party without the friction of scrutinizing what it actually stands for.

While the AfD owns volume and algorithmic reach, Die Linke produced 2025’s single most viral political moment in Germany. In January 2025, Heidi Reichinnek went viral for her speech in the Bundestag condemning the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) for collaborating with the AfD on immigration legislation, accusing the party of “paving the way for the resurgence of fascism.” The video gained over thirty million views on TikTok and is attributed with boosting Die Linke’s support in the polls among leftist youth just prior to the election.

Reichinnek is, in every sense, a TikTok-native politician. Her video reels on everything from domestic violence and contraception to rent and migration have long earned her supporters, particularly among young female voters. Under her influence, Die Linke proved the most popular choice for voters aged between 18 and 24 at the February 2025 election, defying predictions that the party would fall below the 5% parliamentary threshold.

But the parallels with the AfD are as instructive as the differences. Youth support for both parties is driven less by ideology than by frustration with political stagnation and a desire for decisive change, the AfD appealing more to young men with messages of order and cultural homogeneity, while Die Linke resonates particularly with young women through social justice, inclusivity, and redistribution. Two sides of the same disillusionment, two brands of radical clarity in a world of centrist blur.

A Foreign Hand in the Feed

What elevates this beyond normal political competition is the documented presence of external actors deliberately amplifying these dynamics. Beyond authentic political campaigning, groups operating on TikTok throughout 2024 and 2025 were connected to foreign, often Russian, actors. Operations by Russia affiliated groups such as Storm-1516 produced fake videos depicting the destruction of AfD ballots. Germany’s Federal Interior Ministry confirmed the hallmarks of a Russian influence operation. TikTok itself removed a network of 46 accounts created to artificially amplify German-language narratives favorable to the AfD.

The logic of the Russian hybrid threat here is not necessarily to elect the AfD, it is to deepen polarization. A Germany divided between an insurgent far right and a resurgent radical left is a Germany distracted from Ukraine, paralyzed in its foreign policy, and weakened within the EU. TikTok, with its emotion-maximizing algorithm and lax moderation of political content, is not a cause of this polarization, however it is an accelerant that foreign actors are happy to pour fuel into.

A Democracy Shaped by Algorithm

The most striking feature of Germany’s 2025 election was not that the far right support increased. It was that the far left surged simultaneously, and among the same demographic range. As a result, two ideologically opposed movements drew support from the same generational cohort, which suggests that ideology alone cannot explain the pattern. It has to be something deeper, a shared emotional condition that different political entrepreneurs are simply channeling in different directions.

That condition is democratic disillusionment. Young Germans did not turn to the AfD because they had thought through the implications of ethnic nationalism, nor did they turn to Die Linke because they had carefully weighed the merits of democratic socialism. They turned to both because the center had failed to make them feel seen, heard, or represented.

The AfD offered young men a language of loss and restoration such as “your country is being taken, and we alone will reclaim it”. Die Linke offered young women a language of solidarity and fury such as “the system is rigged, and we will name every injustice out loud”. Neither offer required ideological coherence. Both required only the feeling of recognition.

What Comes Next

The fluidity of this radicalization is actually a genuine democratic opportunity, but one with a narrow and closing window. Young voters who feel affiliated with extreme parties without deep ideological commitment are, by definition, still persuadable. The question is whether democratic center parties, civic institutions, and media organisations have the imagination and the speed to reach them before the affective attachment strengthens into identity. So far, the answer has largely been no, not because the center lacks ideas, but because it lacks presence in the spaces where this generation forms its political self-understanding.

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By Erekle Gozalisvhili - Fellow of Hybrid Threats and Resilience Program at the Strategic Security Initiative (SSI)

Photo: OpenAI