> What is unusual is that the leaked emails are not published on the site directly. Instead, AI-generated summaries are shown, categorised and rated from Low to Critical.
Interesting choice. I don't feel like I'm at the comfort level where I would really trust any of those summaries - although I can respect the reasoning behind it.
I assume because of the high quantity they try to protect individual's privacy that way. Otherwise going by hand through each email would take years for PII and other links redaction.
Because the leakers might have ethical standards? Same as with snowden not dumping everything directly and letting journalists scrub it first. None of this actually applies though because everything (supposedly) got leaked in the torrent.
the leak is much more then emails, e.g. it includes a lot of donations, members in certain regional groups etc.
it also dates back to the funding times of the AfD at which point the AfD had not yet been clearly right radical, but a side publishing it might very well be scanned by bots and then someone decent who was shortly a member during the early days and left due realizing this is going in a very bad direction might "permanently" be described as AfD member or similar in search, agent questions, e.g. done when they look for a new job
but I think the more relevant point here is probably the reduction of legal consequences and I wouldn't be surprised if whoever provided the site and the hacker are two different entities
lastly this seem to have been an exceedingly trivial but AI supported hack, so there is some chance the was done by a young and very inexperienced person who got more then they bargained for and try to somehow balance personal risk with the hope that this helps with convincing more people how bad the AfD is or similar
either-way multiple new sites and other sources have downloaded the sources and verified random samples where possible and it seem the dump is actually fully authentic
I don't think there is much difference in the crime committed.
But intend can matter if you are caught can influence where in the possible range of penalties the judge will judge you.
There is also a chance the site provider and actual hacker/torrent provider are not the same person, in which case if they go after the site provider they could argue they just did automatized journalistic work with reasonable journalistic standards (not sure if that will work, but it would be worth a try; also only relevant if they are two different people).
Lastly the hacker might be very inexperienced/didn't really expect much success which also could explain the current outcome.
There is also the point that a website might be indexed by bots/search engines, the torrent might not and this could cause some problems. E.g. very very early one the AfD was not yet clear right radical and the mails date back to this time. If someone hat interactions with them only then but now get indexed by some search/ai which lets say an employer uses to screen hires this could have very bad consequences for that person without them having done anything wrong (if their connection to it really was only during the very very early days).
That's a weird take? It's entirely plausible to think that some of the info should be in the public (illegal stuff, prove of bad character, what's their strategy etc.) but not every PII in it? Like bank accounts, private addresses, private photos.
yes and more or less all respectable news reporting in Germany is done based on the raw sources
but this AI summaries have been a mistake as now the AfD will with some degree of success go around claiming that anything bad is supposedly AI generated, even if it very clearly isn't
>Youre absolutely right. The fascist and de humanizing content might just as well be hallucinated. /s
It might not be entirely hallucinated, but it's still a real concern given all the discussions about the AfD inevitably gets filled with people engaging in motte-and-bailey tactics. For instance, are the AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)? In cases like these rough summaries inevitably mangle the exact policy positions, which might make them look better/worse than they actually are. You might think "AfD are fascists anyways, who cares if their positions get mangled?", but that's terrible epistemics.
and the original is available for download via torrent and most newspapers etc. have based their reporting on this
> AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution
a huge part of the people currently in leading position had been in organizations which where so extrema radical and anti-constitutional that they have been force dissolved which has a very high legal burden to happen. This includes organizations which where out right Neo-Nazi organizations celebrating Hitler and what he did (but also many other not neo-nazi but not any less dangerous organizations/movement)
> (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)?
concretely defined because many of their members have been in neo nazi and other similar bad organizations which have been force desolved
and because they have very openly represented values which are against most of the extra protected/valued part of the German constitution, including in no specific order
- very publicly being against woman rights in many cases and forms, including in speeches hold in the "senate" (Bundestag)
- not "just" being against immigrants, but dehumanizing them and calling for violence against them
- their publicized anti immigration plans also go beyond immigrants seem to want to kick out anyone with different ethnicity no matter if they have grown up as a German Citizen. Sure they are a bit more vague about this, but it's the only way their numbers about people they want to kick out add up.
- campaigning for wanting to remove some of the check and balances in the constitution against extremist populist takeover
- lets also not forget stuff like that they just recently tried to conspire with the BSW to prevent elected CDU officials from taking part ins some votes
to just name a very small fraction of what they did.
Nothing there is "vague", or "maybe this are just some people" or anything like this. This party is _very clear cut_ a threat to German constitution even if this might not apply to every single member of it.
If you apply the same standards as for the process against the NPD the AfD would have been dissolved by now.
EDIT: To avoid any misunderstandings, I'm not saying there are no hallucinations and that it's okay to spread misinformation. The point is more that this mails are irrelevant, no of the points above are based on the mails.
"Dominic Cummings warned on The Spectator's Quite Right! podcast that Whitehall and the civil service would resort to illegal tactics—such as leaking confidential medical and tax records or bugging phones—to prevent Nigel Farage and Reform UK from gaining power."
>Dominic Mckenzie Cummings (born 25 November 1971) is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until he resigned on 13 November 2020.[1]
Why should we care about a former government advisor who resigned 6 years ago, and isn't even in the same party as the government in power?
A) He's been closer to the levers of power than probably either of us, so would have a better view of how it would work and b) he didn't resign in disgrace.
>A) He's been closer to the levers of power than probably either of us, so would have a better view of how it would work and
But that's not an infinite excuse to extrapolate from one person's statement to the whole of uk political establishment. Not to mention he's not a totally neutral party either. According to wikipedia he's against the conservative party and supports Reform UK.
"In 2025 he dropped calls for the creation of a start-up party to replace the Tories and in a blog post in March talked up Reform UK."
I'd like to hope so, but the security services have been remarkably relaxed about the far right and focus all their energy on environmentalists and little old ladies holding up "Palestine Action" signs.
Or they could just let people vote for the party they agree with? Whether that party favours Palestine or limited immigration or whatever their policy is.
Parties that favor limited immigration have no issues in Germany, for example the leading government party favors that. This is not what's pushing the majority of Germans to favor looking into a ban of the AfD.
The majority of Germans do not support a ban. It's the completely brainrotten and extreme left that supports it.
The reality is that something between 20-40% voted for them. While there are problematic elements in the AFD, and they're lying populists, they're ultimately just morally bankrupt profiteers. Basically the same as linke and greens, just targeting different demographics. You're probably just the target demographic of those parties, hence your frankly insane view that banning the most popular single party would be a good idea. It would not. It would massively exaggerate the issue and further alienate even bigger chunks of the population.
The issues the AFD are raising need to be resolved. That's the only way to calm things down, but the established parties seem to inept to deliver on that, hence the increasingly problematic situation.
Great, you found a poll made by a extreme left "journalist" tabloids asking their readers wherever AFD should be banned.
That's precisely the reason why it's so hard to interface with people like you seem to be. You've completely lost touch with reality.
The next time you're interacting with someone on the lower income percentage ask them if they think it should be banned.
You probably know the answer, just aren't willing to admit to it.
The AFD Party members don't even believe the BS they're talking about themselves. They just say whatever they think their voters want to hear. Just look at what weidel etc is doing vs what she's preaching.
So if you spend any amount of time thinking about that fact you should be able to realize that what the AFD is running on is something a big chunk of the population desires. And alienating those by removing whom theyre voting for will end in a complete disaster.
Claiming the opposite is just putting your head into the sand because you cannot face reality, like so many on the left continue to do...
Why would you "like to hope so"? The same laws should exist for everyone and that includes agents of the state.
As for people supporting "Palestine Action", activists always have their most sympathetic looking members e.g. elderly women to have arrested as it makes the authorities look worse.
Palestine Action have done at least two violent crimes and several hundred other offences including burglary, vandalism.
Just because people have the politics you like doesn't mean they are all sunshine and rainbows.
The Reform/Restore parties you dislike are pursuing change legally and peacefully through the ballot box.
I used to think like you, but living in a country where the far right is about to come to power, and seeing fundamental freedoms disappear by the day, I've understood why people believe that parties like Reform and AFD (and many other parties, who resemble each other as much in their ideology as in their links with Russia, a useful signal) have to be stopped in their tracks while there's a chance, and if we find ourselves in a 'first they came for the far-right' type of situation, that's a bridge we'll have time to think about later.
The normalisation of fascism, the criminalisation of resistance or even of protests, all the way to the boot stomping on your face, all those things appear so fast, too fast to react. So I can see why one would prefer to take the rights of far-right politicians away. If Corbyn came to power and witchhunted Reform, I would think much less of Corbyn but I'd still understand why others would cheer on that.
And when it comes to Palestine Action, they did the kind of violent crimes that I hope will be taught to future generations, same as we taught about resistance in WWII. I and everyone else support Palestine Action not because of the old women, but because they did burglary and vandalism against a terrorist state carrying out genocide. Sunshine and rainbows.
I don't know why you're subtly indicating conspiracy theories here. The support of certain parties, in this case far right ones, by Russia, financially/ideologically/politically, and in the other direction the support of Russia (and the apology of their war of invasion) by these parties is not a secret or a theory, it's not hidden by either Russia or those parties...
And yes, getting support from amd making apologies for a country like Russia is a good signal of who not to want anywhere near the halls of power.
Not wanting to get involved with foreign wars is not the same as supporting a war.
If any of the parties got any support from Russia directly, they would be arrested. Have they been arrested? If not, then whatever you've been told about them being involved with Russia is bullshit. The government would like to find any excuse to lock up certain individuals in the UK; this includes both those on the left and the right.
> If any of the parties got any support from Russia directly, they would be arrested. Have they been arrested? If not, then whatever you've been told about them being involved with Russia is bullshit.
You're taking "innocent until proven guilty" too literally. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
No, I am not. I've heard a lot of bullshit in politics over the last decade. You got to show me proof. Otherwise, I am not interested in such claims because they are often unfounded or straight-up propaganda.
You should demand evidence for claims, especially if they are serious as you claim.
aliasxneo 1 day ago
Interesting choice. I don't feel like I'm at the comfort level where I would really trust any of those summaries - although I can respect the reasoning behind it.
mentalgear 1 day ago
Avamander 1 day ago
gruez 1 day ago
dylan604 1 day ago
dathinab 1 day ago
it also dates back to the funding times of the AfD at which point the AfD had not yet been clearly right radical, but a side publishing it might very well be scanned by bots and then someone decent who was shortly a member during the early days and left due realizing this is going in a very bad direction might "permanently" be described as AfD member or similar in search, agent questions, e.g. done when they look for a new job
but I think the more relevant point here is probably the reduction of legal consequences and I wouldn't be surprised if whoever provided the site and the hacker are two different entities
lastly this seem to have been an exceedingly trivial but AI supported hack, so there is some chance the was done by a young and very inexperienced person who got more then they bargained for and try to somehow balance personal risk with the hope that this helps with convincing more people how bad the AfD is or similar
either-way multiple new sites and other sources have downloaded the sources and verified random samples where possible and it seem the dump is actually fully authentic
fallingbananna 1 day ago
So the leakers may have already been under some pressure to not end up in jail for doing the right thing.
dathinab 1 day ago
But intend can matter if you are caught can influence where in the possible range of penalties the judge will judge you.
There is also a chance the site provider and actual hacker/torrent provider are not the same person, in which case if they go after the site provider they could argue they just did automatized journalistic work with reasonable journalistic standards (not sure if that will work, but it would be worth a try; also only relevant if they are two different people).
Lastly the hacker might be very inexperienced/didn't really expect much success which also could explain the current outcome.
There is also the point that a website might be indexed by bots/search engines, the torrent might not and this could cause some problems. E.g. very very early one the AfD was not yet clear right radical and the mails date back to this time. If someone hat interactions with them only then but now get indexed by some search/ai which lets say an employer uses to screen hires this could have very bad consequences for that person without them having done anything wrong (if their connection to it really was only during the very very early days).
netrus 1 day ago
ferongr 1 day ago
Avamander 1 day ago
bulbar 1 day ago
Why do you think the state is the leaker?
jerbear4328 1 day ago
woadwarrior01 1 day ago
I think they could've redacted using a small model like OpenAI's privacy-filter model instead of rewriting.
rembal 1 day ago
dathinab 1 day ago
but this AI summaries have been a mistake as now the AfD will with some degree of success go around claiming that anything bad is supposedly AI generated, even if it very clearly isn't
karim79 1 day ago
go_elmo 1 day ago
An email states wishes to make hand bag leather from refuge skin.
But yeah, the leak basically reports forks found in a kitchen, nothing new.
gruez 1 day ago
It might not be entirely hallucinated, but it's still a real concern given all the discussions about the AfD inevitably gets filled with people engaging in motte-and-bailey tactics. For instance, are the AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)? In cases like these rough summaries inevitably mangle the exact policy positions, which might make them look better/worse than they actually are. You might think "AfD are fascists anyways, who cares if their positions get mangled?", but that's terrible epistemics.
dathinab 1 day ago
most things aren't hallucinated
and the original is available for download via torrent and most newspapers etc. have based their reporting on this
> AfD literally against democracy, or against the constitution
a huge part of the people currently in leading position had been in organizations which where so extrema radical and anti-constitutional that they have been force dissolved which has a very high legal burden to happen. This includes organizations which where out right Neo-Nazi organizations celebrating Hitler and what he did (but also many other not neo-nazi but not any less dangerous organizations/movement)
> (vaguely defined, because they're discriminating against immigrants)?
concretely defined because many of their members have been in neo nazi and other similar bad organizations which have been force desolved
and because they have very openly represented values which are against most of the extra protected/valued part of the German constitution, including in no specific order
- very publicly being against woman rights in many cases and forms, including in speeches hold in the "senate" (Bundestag)
- not "just" being against immigrants, but dehumanizing them and calling for violence against them
- their publicized anti immigration plans also go beyond immigrants seem to want to kick out anyone with different ethnicity no matter if they have grown up as a German Citizen. Sure they are a bit more vague about this, but it's the only way their numbers about people they want to kick out add up.
- campaigning for wanting to remove some of the check and balances in the constitution against extremist populist takeover
- publicly downplaying anti-semitic terrorist attacks
- lets also not forget stuff like that they just recently tried to conspire with the BSW to prevent elected CDU officials from taking part ins some votes
to just name a very small fraction of what they did.
Nothing there is "vague", or "maybe this are just some people" or anything like this. This party is _very clear cut_ a threat to German constitution even if this might not apply to every single member of it.
If you apply the same standards as for the process against the NPD the AfD would have been dissolved by now.
EDIT: To avoid any misunderstandings, I'm not saying there are no hallucinations and that it's okay to spread misinformation. The point is more that this mails are irrelevant, no of the points above are based on the mails.
gadders 1 day ago
The same will happen to Reform/Restore in the UK.
"Dominic Cummings warned on The Spectator's Quite Right! podcast that Whitehall and the civil service would resort to illegal tactics—such as leaking confidential medical and tax records or bugging phones—to prevent Nigel Farage and Reform UK from gaining power."
gruez 1 day ago
Why should we care about a former government advisor who resigned 6 years ago, and isn't even in the same party as the government in power?
edit: retracted the "resigned in disgrace" part
gadders 1 day ago
gruez 1 day ago
But that's not an infinite excuse to extrapolate from one person's statement to the whole of uk political establishment. Not to mention he's not a totally neutral party either. According to wikipedia he's against the conservative party and supports Reform UK.
"In 2025 he dropped calls for the creation of a start-up party to replace the Tories and in a blog post in March talked up Reform UK."
> b) he didn't resign in disgrace.
You're right. I edited my comment.
pjc50 1 day ago
gadders 1 day ago
Timon3 1 day ago
Haven't we had this same discussion before?
ffsm8 1 day ago
The reality is that something between 20-40% voted for them. While there are problematic elements in the AFD, and they're lying populists, they're ultimately just morally bankrupt profiteers. Basically the same as linke and greens, just targeting different demographics. You're probably just the target demographic of those parties, hence your frankly insane view that banning the most popular single party would be a good idea. It would not. It would massively exaggerate the issue and further alienate even bigger chunks of the population.
The issues the AFD are raising need to be resolved. That's the only way to calm things down, but the established parties seem to inept to deliver on that, hence the increasingly problematic situation.
Timon3 22 hours ago
57% of Germans approve looking into a ban. That's the majority, simple as that. https://volksverpetzer.de/aktuelles/umfrage-mehrheit-afd-ver...
ffsm8 17 hours ago
That's precisely the reason why it's so hard to interface with people like you seem to be. You've completely lost touch with reality.
The next time you're interacting with someone on the lower income percentage ask them if they think it should be banned.
You probably know the answer, just aren't willing to admit to it.
The AFD Party members don't even believe the BS they're talking about themselves. They just say whatever they think their voters want to hear. Just look at what weidel etc is doing vs what she's preaching.
So if you spend any amount of time thinking about that fact you should be able to realize that what the AFD is running on is something a big chunk of the population desires. And alienating those by removing whom theyre voting for will end in a complete disaster.
Claiming the opposite is just putting your head into the sand because you cannot face reality, like so many on the left continue to do...
IslandRebel 1 day ago
As for people supporting "Palestine Action", activists always have their most sympathetic looking members e.g. elderly women to have arrested as it makes the authorities look worse.
Palestine Action have done at least two violent crimes and several hundred other offences including burglary, vandalism.
Just because people have the politics you like doesn't mean they are all sunshine and rainbows.
The Reform/Restore parties you dislike are pursuing change legally and peacefully through the ballot box.
constantius 1 day ago
The normalisation of fascism, the criminalisation of resistance or even of protests, all the way to the boot stomping on your face, all those things appear so fast, too fast to react. So I can see why one would prefer to take the rights of far-right politicians away. If Corbyn came to power and witchhunted Reform, I would think much less of Corbyn but I'd still understand why others would cheer on that.
And when it comes to Palestine Action, they did the kind of violent crimes that I hope will be taught to future generations, same as we taught about resistance in WWII. I and everyone else support Palestine Action not because of the old women, but because they did burglary and vandalism against a terrorist state carrying out genocide. Sunshine and rainbows.
gadders 1 day ago
Yeah, those are all 100% genuine, nothing made up there. Completely legit.
constantius 1 day ago
And yes, getting support from amd making apologies for a country like Russia is a good signal of who not to want anywhere near the halls of power.
IslandRebel 22 hours ago
If any of the parties got any support from Russia directly, they would be arrested. Have they been arrested? If not, then whatever you've been told about them being involved with Russia is bullshit. The government would like to find any excuse to lock up certain individuals in the UK; this includes both those on the left and the right.
claykkari 21 hours ago
You're taking "innocent until proven guilty" too literally. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
IslandRebel 18 hours ago
You should demand evidence for claims, especially if they are serious as you claim.
IslandRebel 1 day ago