The ‘Forum against Fakes’ citizens' assembly, led by the Bertelsmann Foundation in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, concluded in September 2024 with the submission of recommendations to the Federal Minister. This was the first ‘new generation’ citizens' panel, where more than 420,000 German citizens were able to interact and take part in the work of the panel thanks to Make.org's online participation platforms. We provide a review on this unprecedented democratic exercise.
On 12 September 2024, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior hosted the closing event of the citizens' assembly “Forum against Fakes - Together for a strong democracy”. At this event, the 120 citizens of the assembly officially handed over their report to Nancy Faeser, Federal Minister of the Interior.
Nancy Faeser, Federal Minister of the Interior: “When it comes to measures against disinformation, we are talking about nothing less than the protection of our democracy. Around 424,000 participants from all over Germany took the opportunity of the ‘Forum against Fakes’ to commit themselves to strengthening our democracy. We will now evaluate the recommendations and see to what extent they can be taken into account in the Ministry's further work in this thematic area”.
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This citizen report records the results of an unprecedented public participation process, which started in January 2024.
In order to initiate a Germany-wide debate on how to deal with disinformation, the Bertelsmann Foundation conceived a unique participation format in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and various partners. The aim was to bring together as many citizens as possible to raise awareness of the dangers of disinformation for democracy and involve them in collectively developing proposals on how best to deal with it.
As a civic tech organisation specialised in massive online citizen participation, Make.org teamed up with the Bertelsmann Stiftung to implement the various online phases of the operation.
In the first phase, from 24 January to 31 March 2024, almost 200,000 German citizens, in all their diversity, answered the question ‘Fake news and disinformation: what should we do to protect ourselves and our democracy?’ with 1,600 proposals and 875,000 votes. The results of this initial consultation helped to identify the citizens' priorities on the subject and to guide the work of the 120 citizens from the panel, who met for the first time in March.
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Based on the results of the online consultation, the 120 citizens from the panel held an intensive exchange of ideas on the consultation in five thematic groups, and discussed the first ideas for concrete recommendations. Of these, 5 preliminary recommendations were published on the Make.org DIALOGUE platform for the general public to read, comment on and add to.
Almost 10,000 German citizens took part in this second phase of online participation, and their contributions - in the form of suggestions for improvement and critical points of view - made it possible to gain an insight into the general public's level of approval of the preliminary recommendations and to refine them at the last working meetings of the citizens' panel.
Ahead of the submission of the 15 final recommendations of the citizens' panel, these were broken down into 28 concrete measures for resubmission to the general population. The idea here was to continue the dialogue between the German citizens and the citizens' panel and to see how they resonate with the public. It did not put into question the panel recommendations.
The 28 proposed measures received more than 620,000 votes from more than 215,000 citizens. They gave the recommendations a positive assessment, with each one receiving more support than disapproval. This final phase of online participation enabled the final recommendations to be made visible to the public ahead of their presentation to the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
By including the results of the different online participation phases, the citizens' panel report also carries the voice of more than 420,000 German citizens, in all their diversity, who shared their opinions and ideas between January and July.
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The results of these different online participation phases provided a rich and unprecedented basis on which the citizens' panel discussed the most important points and, informed by experts, drew up recommendations on how to tackle disinformation.
Sarah Delahaye, Managing Director of Make.org Germany: “It was an honour for Make.org to implement online participation in this important project. We are particularly pleased that the dialogue between the citizens' panel and online citizens worked so well. The high level of satisfaction among participants shows just how valuable these participatory formats are for our democracy. The high turnout shows that many people in Germany want to make an active contribution, with their ideas and suggestions, to the development and protection of our democracy. It's essential to give everyone a voice and get everyone involved in tackling these major societal challenges!”
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The citizen report resulting from this process is therefore a valuable contribution for the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the context of drawing up the federal strategy for tackling disinformation, in that it will be able to take into account the expectations and recommendations of citizens.
Find out all the results of the various online participation phases as well as those of the entire process: https://forum-gegen-fakes.de/en/englisch
‘Forum gegen Fakes’ is an initiative led by the Bertelsmann Foundation in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, as well as other partners such as the Mercator Foundation and the Michael Otto Foundation for Sustainability. It is also supported by the #UseTheNews initiative and the Deutschland sicher im Netz e.V. association.
As a civic tech organisation specialised in massive online citizen participation, Make.org teamed up with the Bertelsmann Stiftung to implement the various online phases of the operation.
This project is intended to be an inspiring example of how the work of a citizens' assembly can be brought together and carried out with the general public, and how a methodology can strengthen its impact and lead to concrete political changes.