About Volksverpetzer

Volksverpetzer

Volksverpetzer is a German anti-fake-news blog that combines fact-checking with opinionated commentary against disinformation, hate speech and right-wing extremism. Founded and led by blogger and activist Thomas Laschyk, it describes itself as a platform for critical, honest and ethically attentive reporting, and it is financed entirely through crowdfunding. With a deliberately combative tone and a heavy emphasis on documenting sources, Volksverpetzer has become one of the most visible civil-society voices in Germany's fight against online disinformation, operating a website, social video channels and a dedicated mobile app.

Overview

The name is a play on words: a Volksverpetzer is, roughly, someone who "rats out" the people — and the blog embraces the insult as a badge of honour, positioning itself as an outlet that exposes the lies told to the public rather than by it. Its articles fall into two broad types: fact-checks that dissect viral claims, manipulated images and misleading narratives circulating on social media, and analytical commentaries that take apart the rhetoric of right-wing populist actors, above all Germany's AfD party. Every article is built around sourced evidence — the site's video descriptions routinely link to long Google Docs source collections so readers can verify claims themselves.

Unlike the neutral-arbiter model of institutional fact-checkers, Volksverpetzer is openly partisan in defence of democratic values: it states plainly that its mission is to fight disinformation and right-wing extremism. This positioning has made it both popular with progressive audiences and a frequent target of the actors it covers. The outlet's work is entirely crowdfunded, and it presents that independence from advertisers and institutional grants as central to its credibility.

History

Thomas Laschyk, known online as "Der Volksverpetzer," founded the blog in the mid-2010s, a period when Germany was experiencing a sharp rise in online hate speech and disinformation — from the PEGIDA protest movement to the refugee debate of 2015 and the growing social-media presence of the AfD. Laschyk, a blogger and online activist, built the site as a one-man operation that gradually grew into a team-backed outlet.

Over the years Volksverpetzer professionalised its output while keeping its activist edge. It expanded from text articles into short-form video, building a substantial following on YouTube with explainer-style clips that debunk right-wing narratives. Laschyk distilled the project's approach into a book, Werbung für die Wahrheit (Advertising for the Truth), published with a tour of readings and discussions, in which he argues that facts must be turned into compelling stories if they are to compete with disinformation — "tell more truth, contradict fewer lies," in the book's signature formulation.

The outlet has also engaged in direct civic action beyond publishing. In one widely noted episode, Volksverpetzer paid for a school class from the Westerwald region to participate in the D-Day anniversary commemorations in Normandy after the AfD had opposed the educational trip — an action its founder documented on video as an example of doing, not just reporting. At various points the project has faced political and legal pressure from the far right, including attempts to have Laschyk disinvited from public events such as a youth congress at the Bavarian state parliament; the outlet has publicised each such attempt as evidence of its effectiveness.

Programming and Content

Volksverpetzer's editorial output centres on three formats. The first is the classic fact-check: a viral claim — a doctored photo, a misleading statistic about crime or migration, a quote taken out of context — is traced to its origin, tested against primary sources and rated as true, false or misleading. These pieces are written in accessible language and structured for sharing, so that readers can forward them into the same social-media threads where the falsehood is spreading.

The second format is analysis (Analyse): longer pieces that examine media coverage, political rhetoric and propaganda techniques. A typical analysis might document how a particular AfD talking point misrepresents official statistics, or how a mainstream outlet's framing inadvertently amplifies a far-right narrative. The site's YouTube descriptions show the method: articles are backed by linked source documents drawing on public broadcasters, quality newspapers and official data.

The third format is video. The Volksverpetzer YouTube channel produces short, punchy clips — often narrated by Laschyk himself — that translate the blog's fact-checks into a visual language suited to social feeds. The outlet has also released a mobile app, available for iOS and Android, that bundles its articles with shareable graphics, infographics, videos and memes, so supporters can deploy counter-arguments directly in online debates. The site states that it is always open to article submissions from readers, giving it a participatory element unusual for a fact-checking operation.

Coverage and Audience

Volksverpetzer publishes in German for a German-speaking audience, with its core readership among progressives, anti-racism activists, educators and younger social-media users engaged in debates about disinformation. Third-party traffic estimates put the site at roughly two hundred thousand monthly visits, with a heavily male-skewed audience and strong direct and search traffic — figures that suggest a loyal, intentional readership rather than accidental viral reach. Its social video content extends that reach considerably, with individual clips drawing tens of thousands of views.

The outlet's influence is best measured by the reactions it provokes: it is regularly attacked by the far-right actors it covers, has been the subject of parliamentary questions and media-industry debate, and its founder is invited to speak at schools, universities and public institutions about disinformation. Whether one shares its politics or not, Volksverpetzer has demonstrated that a crowdfunded blog can sustain a full-time fact-checking operation outside the institutional media.

Ownership

Volksverpetzer was founded by Thomas Laschyk, who remains its editor-in-chief and managing director, and it is run by his team as an independent project. There is no publishing-group owner and no corporate parent; the outlet presents itself as a civil-society initiative rather than a commercial media company. Financing comes entirely from crowdfunding — reader donations solicited openly on the site — which the outlet describes as the guarantee of its editorial independence. Supporters are directed to a donations page, and the project periodically reports on its funding needs in public appeals.

Digital Presence

The website at volksverpetzer.de is the archive and home base, but the outlet's distribution is deliberately multi-platform: YouTube and YouTube Shorts for video explainers, a mobile app that packages articles, sharepics, infographics and memes for easy sharing, and active social-media accounts that push new fact-checks into the feeds where disinformation travels. The project also runs an online shop selling the founder's book and supporter merchandise. For an outlet whose theory of change is that truth needs better marketing than lies, this diversified digital presence is not incidental — it is the strategy.

The book, the app and the theory of change

Volksverpetzer's founder has turned the project's method into a portable doctrine. In Werbung für die Wahrheit (Advertising for the Truth), Thomas Laschyk argues that the fight against disinformation cannot be won by debunking alone: falsehoods spread because they are packaged as compelling stories, and truth needs equally compelling packaging to compete. The book — presented on a nationwide reading tour — distils years of blog practice into strategies for making facts shareable, emotional and memorable, aimed at activists, educators and ordinary citizens who want to push back in their own networks.

The mobile app embodies the same thinking in product form. Rather than simply republishing articles, it equips supporters for online debate: sharepics, infographics, short videos and memes, all sourced and ready to deploy in comment threads and family chat groups where misinformation actually circulates. It is agitation material for the fact-based side — an unusual concept for a journalism outlet, and a revealing one. Volksverpetzer does not pretend to stand above the fray; it openly arms its readers for it. That partisanship is precisely what its supporters fund and its opponents attack, and it makes the outlet a case study in a broader question facing European media: whether the defence of democratic discourse requires journalists to become campaigners, and what is gained — and lost — when they do.