Olaf Scholz: German election 'will not be decided by social media owners'

[highplainsdem]

Source: Guardian

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged voters not to let the “owners of social media channels” decide next year’s snap election, after Elon Musk repeatedly endorsed the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

In a New Year’s Eve address recorded for television and made available before its broadcast on Tuesday, Scholz said German citizens alone had the power to decide “where Germany goes from here” after the general election on 23 February.

“It will not be decided by the owners of social media channels,” Scholz said of the country’s future.

“In our debates, one can be forgiven for sometimes thinking the more extreme an opinion is, the more attention it will garner.” Rather, Scholz said, the fate of German society “will be up to the vast majority of reasonable and decent people”.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/olaf-scholz-german-election-will-not-be-decided-by-social-media-owners

[Lovie777]

1. Think of Romania....

[yaesu]

2. Musk is an outright terrorist but being uber rich shields him from any laws foreign and domestic. nt

[NNadir]

3. It is likely to be - and should be - decided by competence, which kind of leaves Scholz up the creek without a paddle.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Germany is already way ahead of us 😅

[progressoid]

5. "vast majority of reasonable and decent people"

Yeah, good luck with that.

[karin_sj]

6. They have a better chance than we did for a fair election

I don't think they have the massive amount of voter challenges, voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc., that we do here. Russia, Elon, etc., will try to rig the results like they did here, but I don't think they'll be successful.

[malthaussen]

7. Good luck with that, Olaf. n/t