Vorsicht, manipuliert!

The document defines various forms of information disorder—misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, and information manipulation—and explains their impact on political work, such as the undermining of public debate and the defamation of politicians. It provides a framework for establishing monitoring environments using OSINT tools, a methodology for evaluating incidents via the ABCDE-Framework and a priority matrix, and a set of strategic communication (StratKom) recommendations ranging from reactive measures like debunking to proactive strategies like prebunking and resilience building.

• Information manipulation is defined as a coordinated campaign where false or deliberately distorted content is spread with political intent to cause harm, focusing on the activity rather than just the content.
• The document distinguishes between misinformation (no intent to harm), disinformation (intent to deceive/harm), and malinformation (truthful information used to cause harm, such as doxing).
• Information manipulation is used by authoritarian states and extremist movements to undermine political opinion-forming processes, often filling information vacuums during crises like pandemics or wars.
• Gender-specific disinformation is a significant issue, with female politicians and minorities being targeted more frequently through sexual degradation and violence threats, as seen in the case of Annalena Baerbock during the 2021 federal election.
• The document recommends a systematic monitoring approach based on a keyword list covering three priority areas: debate climate, stakeholders, and reputation.
• The ABCDE-Framework is proposed for documenting incidents by analyzing five categories: Actor, Behaviour, Content, Degree, and Effect.
• Strategic communication (StratKom) measures are divided into reactive-tactical (e.g., debunking, reporting), reactive-strategic (e.g., crisis communication), proactive-tactical (e.g., prebunking), and proactive-strategic (e.g., resilience building).
• The European Digital Services Act (DSA) introduces obligations for hosting providers to establish reporting mechanisms for illegal content and to mitigate systemic risks to public debate.

APA

Dorn, M., & Barth, S. (2023). Vorsicht, manipuliert! Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AHEAD-Leitfaden.pdf

Chicago

Dorn, Mauritius, and Solveig Barth. Vorsicht, manipuliert! Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AHEAD-Leitfaden.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Dorn |first1=Mauritius |last2=Barth |first2=Solveig |title=Vorsicht, manipuliert! |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=2023 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AHEAD-Leitfaden.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dorn2023vorsicht, author = {Dorn, Mauritius and Barth, Solveig}, title = {{Vorsicht, manipuliert!}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2023}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AHEAD-Leitfaden.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }