The hairdo, but the scarf is causing problems. Reza Kazemi is plucking frantically at the red cashmere, the one he is wearing with a shirt and open jacket.

be Equal to lecture on political campaigns in the Internet to start. The listeners in a small meeting room in the Brussels European Parliament are already waiting.

Kazemi’s called a “Spin-Doctor” – a political consultant who accepts orders from the parties. To move his Job: people for the right cross. And that, he says, today, less about commercials, posters, and brochures advertising as the most relevant in social media. Computer-controlled debates can election campaigns into a tailspin; the defense of digital attacks prepares everywhere a headache. Because Yes, says policy expert, that the Internet is a battle for the opinion of shear power, often with unclean funds.

The deputies of the EU Parliament, for coming out this evening, listen to Kazemis lecture excited. You days to a phenomenon that many politicians in Brussels unsettled shortly before the European elections end of may. Bots and artificial intelligence – by the terms you have heard it all already. But of what importance could it have for election campaign between Lisbon and Helsinki?

Kazemi is reminiscent of a day in the summer of 2015, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened her Account in the social network Instagram. It took only a few hours until Russian Internet trolls austobten on your page. Fake user wrote countless comments such as “I love Putin” and “Putin is the best”. Also, you insulted Merkel. The Federal government had to take the account is temporarily offline. Meanwhile, the smear campaigns in the comment columns are significantly more sophisticated, and you can meet everyone.

“A Troll is a person behind a Software,” says Kazemi. Often, the attacks from so-called Troll-factories in Russia. Around the clock, thousands of people worked here and contributed to countless Social Media Profiles of people that didn’t exist at all. The so-called Social Bots were automated. “12 people can give the impression, as if 25,000 people shared something,” says Kazemi. This in turn leads to great attention – and, ultimately, in the mainstream media.

Also, Paul Lukowicz has come this evening to the European Parliament. The 51-Year-old is head of research in the area of Embedded intelligence at the German research center for Artificial intelligence. “When I was a young man, you had to go to get national attention to a newspaper. There’s a Filter that determines who gets attention,” he recalls. Today, things are different. The Internet could, with the right technology, relevance for something to generate the valid to date as completely irrelevant.

However, Lukowicz, it is likely the Bots are by no means demonised. “It is interesting to note, however, that we are dependent in our opinion critical on Bots – take the example of Google.” Also, search engine Bots, which rooted by the network and, on the Basis of the Algorithms according to the Relevant sought. In the future, says Lukowicz, we would communicate a lot more with Bots. “It is not a matter to deny the phenomenon, but in such a way that it causes no harm.”

Exactly such a design is in Brussels for months discussed. Because of the fear of manipulative campaigns before the European elections is particularly large. Under the slogan of disinformation, the EU-institutions about how to provide against the deliberate dissemination of false or misleading information, the procedure could be.

in December, the EU Commission presented an action plan against Propaganda on the Internet. The Budget of 2015, the Task Force against Russian influence was doubled, and a rapid alert system, via the EU member States attempts to tamper can report. In addition, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, Social Bots to undertook to draw or to erase. How much is this benefit is unclear. Some EU countries, particularly from Eastern Europe, want a clearer answer on smear campaigns and Fake News.

consultant Kazemi shows, in any case unimpressed. As long as the battle of Opinions in the forums is rampant in the more developed he is for his political clients own solutions. “We are building Bots to destroy the other Bots,” he says and sounds a little proud. His company to use Fake Profiles, which were programmed to report Facebook other Bots. Then the network can recognize foreign Bots as well as their own – and delete at the end of all.

dpa