From Alt-Right to Alt-Rechts: Twitter Analysis of the 2017 German Federal Election

In the 2017 German Federal elections, the "Alternative for Deutschland'', or AfD, party was able to take control of many seats in German parliament. Their success was credited, in part, to their large online presence. Like other "alt-right'' organizations worldwide, this party is tech savvy, generating a large social media footprint, especially on Twitter, which provides an ample opportunity to understand their online behavior. In this work we present an analysis of Twitter data related to the aforementioned election. We show how users self-organize into communities, and identify the themes that define those communities. Next we analyze the content generated by those communities, and the extent to which these communities interact. Despite these elections being held in Germany, we note a substantial impact from the English-speaking Twittersphere. Specifically, we note that many of these accounts appear to be from the American alt-right movement, and support the German alt-right movement.