The Machine of Rage - How Social Networks Make the Far Right Stronger, Even When You Fight Them

It is a pattern you only notice when you pause. When you stop scrolling through the endless stream of images, headlines, quotes, and faces and start to look at it like a choreography. What emerges is no coincidence. It is a mechanism - a mathematically orchestrated drama that rewards anger, rewards fear, rewards simplification. And paradoxically, it benefits precisely those who claim to be excluded from the system. Facebook feeds, like the ones you can see on an ordinary Tuesday, tell this story in its purest form. Between portraits of politicians, slogans, and black-and-white mottos, an emotional drone forms that treats information only as raw material for affect. Those who get outraged become part of the game. Those who argue amplify the algorithm. Those who stay silent disappear. The platform does not distinguish between approval and rejection - it measures only what moves. And movement has become the new measure of power.

Right-wing and populist actors have long internalized this grammar. They know that no journalistic argument, no fact-check, and no data proof can compete with the impact of an emotionally charged sentence. "I reported it," it says over a portrait, legally completely baseless, but it sounds good, not productive. Another victory in the end for the right side. In between are politicians in serious blue, hands gesturing, faces frozen into poses. At first glance, it all seems exciting, enlightening - sometimes oppositional, sometimes statesmanlike - yet together they form a system of permanent agitation. It needs no unified broadcaster, no propaganda in the classical sense. It is enough for many small sparks to ignite at once.

The algorithm is the true architect of this new public sphere. It does not operate according to ideology but according to chemistry: it measures adrenaline, cortisol, clicks. The stronger the reaction, the higher the visibility. In this way, every platform turns into a laboratory of emotionalization, where far-right narratives spread like bacteria in warmth. This is not a conscious conspiracy but a byproduct of the business model. The attention economy needs conflict - and the right-wing discourse delivers it in its purest form. But in the end, it is not about political conviction. It is about likes. About the small digital nod that confirms one’s own opinion and gives the feeling of being right. Most users do not seek truth but affirmation. Sense and reason recede when the reward system kicks in. A click replaces engagement, a reaction replaces reflection. Conversation falls silent while the echo grows.

You can already see the consequences in the political climate. The AfD is running neck and neck in the polls, sometimes even slightly ahead of the CDU/CSU. A majority of respondents do not consider Friedrich Merz’s remarks about the cityscape to be racist - 59 percent (as of October 21, 2025), according to a T-Online survey. This shows how little this constant digital bombardment has to do with enlightenment anymore. The overload does not lead to insight but to numbness. It shifts boundaries until no one feels them anymore. And in the end, it produces only one thing: the opposite effect. What was intended as resistance to the right has turned into reinforcement. A few Facebook dollars for the operators - and a few extra percentage points for those who thrive on division.

Anyone who truly wants to change something must start where the algorithm cannot reach: in their own surroundings. With conversations, with neighbors, with small, honest gestures. On the street, in associations, in everyday life. Without this excessive fanaticism, which no longer liberates but binds. Because where has it taken you? Not to the goal you wanted - but away from it. The energy of anger has turned against its creators. Added to this is the trick of apparent balance. Among all the extreme messages, neutral or even critical voices also appear - but they often serve only as a dramaturgical contrast. The system simulates debate while producing polarization. It creates the illusion of free exchange while in truth accelerating a spiral in which the loudest voices set the rhythm. Thus, the appearance of a "minority opinion" becomes the actual majority in the field of vision.

For journalism, this is a quiet catastrophe. While investigative content is laboriously produced, checked, and edited, memes and slogans spread at the speed of light. The market has decoupled truth: not quality determines reach but affect. Those who differentiate lose. Those who simplify win. And those who polarize dominate.

But the most perfidious aspect of this dynamic is its self-reinforcement. Many who write against right-wing hate share exactly the content they actually criticize. They quote to refute - and in doing so, they unintentionally feed the system that turns reach into power. Every contradiction, every indignant comment signals to the platform: relevance. The enemy is nourished by attention. The result is a public sphere that increasingly orients itself toward emotional peaks. Right-wing strategists have long since made a science of it. They speak of "outrage cycles," of "virality waves." Every provocation becomes a test-balloon campaign, every meme a social-psychological experiment. It is no longer about political conviction but about the occupation of consciousness. And while newsrooms struggle to explain complex interrelations, a single image with seven words is enough to shift perception.

What used to be planned in party headquarters now happens in comment sections and Facebook groups. The strategy is no longer centrally directed but algorithmically distributed. That is what makes it so dangerous - and so difficult to grasp. It needs no institution, no organization, no ideologues. It needs only attention.

The democratic response does not lie in imitation but in withdrawal. Those who try to speak in the same tone lose. Those who produce the same noise confirm the system. The only effective counter-strategy is journalistic perseverance - the patient, unwavering telling of complex truth. Not as a reaction to outrage but as a quiet alternative to it. Annoy your local newspaper editors, write to politicians, record small podcasts - but stay factual, not with mockery, but smartly and with facts, with the good things in life. Reach out to people - most have forgotten how to do that. Just invite your neighbors over for coffee and cake, without questioning everything right away. Communicate face to face, take time for other people, and make yourself at least one day a week free from social media..

Because in the end, it is not the algorithm that decides what we think. It only decides what we see. The question is whether we look to understand - or only to react, and if we do, there should be a person sitting across from us.