AfD on digital affairs

The AfD wants to make Saxony-Anhalt a location for data centers and key digital technologies and to promote artificial intelligence. It sees digitalization as an opportunity and criticizes patchy mobile coverage and slow internet.

The AfD wants better internet and better cell phone coverage. It wants to bring large data centers to the state. These are buildings with very many computers. Permits for them should come quickly. The AfD also wants to support artificial intelligence.

For data centers, the platform lists reliable planning conditions, fast permitting, strong power and grid infrastructure, and an investment-friendly environment without what the party calls ideological requirements. Data centers are meant to create jobs and reduce dependence on IT sites abroad. Research on and use of artificial intelligence are to be promoted in a practical way, with emphasis on transparency, data security and state sovereignty. Decisions on new technologies should not be left to private corporations or international actors alone. According to the platform, Germany should supply technologies itself rather than only buy them.

The AfD wants to reverse the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (Network Enforcement Act, NetzDG), have the EU's Digital Services Act reviewed and undo the 2021 legal changes against right-wing extremism and hate crime. In the platform's view these rules turn private platforms into censorship bodies; courts should decide on violations of the law.

There are laws against hate on the internet. The AfD wants to take these laws back. It says companies delete too much and limit opinions. Only courts should decide about violations. The AfD also wants the EU rules for platforms to be checked.

The platform criticizes that algorithms and company review teams decide what may be said without judicial oversight and without transparency. The changes bundled in 2021, including those to the criminal code, are also to be reversed. As a state government the AfD also wants to launch initiatives and campaigns against opaque deletion rules and against algorithms steering opinion. Decisions about content should be transparent, open to court review and in line with fundamental rights.