Social media and other forms of online publication provide anti-democratic actors with a space to network, with hyper-partisan media acting as sources of information and organisers of movements. Taking the Federal Ministry of the Interior’s attempt to ban *Compact* magazine in the summer of 2024 as a starting point, this article examines the potential consequences of individual media bans for far-right and conspiracy theory information ecosystems. The study is based on an automated analysis of articles relating to the far-right ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory from Compact, Junge Freiheit, Epoch Times and PI News over a ten-year period. It shows that all the media outlets examined share thematic similarities in these articles. Compact is cited most frequently, but PI News publishes the largest number of articles with the highest toxicity. In the practice of regulating harmful online ecosystems, a conflict of objectives may therefore arise, requiring a choice to be made between curbing the most toxic and the most influential actors.
The article was published in 2025 in the series ‘Knowledge Creates Democracy: Focus on Threats to Democracy’ by the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society.
