Municipal elections 2026 in the Netherlands: Part VI National and Local Network Visualisations in the Netherlands

“Who Talks to Whom?”

These network visualisations show how coordinated the targeting of known tracked political accounts is. This network specifically shows only coordinated communication. One visualisation shows patterns targeting local politicians and parties, such as municipal parties. The other shows all suspected coordinated behaviour, using a bot score threshold of 0.6, that targets politicians at both the national and local levels. The connections indicate which accounts target at least two of the same politicians. These visualisations therefore do not show all activity, but only suspicious bot accounts that also overlap by targeting at least two of the same politicians.

The network visualisations do not depict direct communication between suspicious accounts. Instead, they depict behavioural coordination. Accounts are connected when they target at least two of the same political actors. Dense clusters therefore indicate groups of accounts exhibiting highly similar targeting patterns, which may be consistent with coordinated amplification or harassment campaigns. The visualisations should be interpreted as evidence of coordinated behaviour rather than proof of common ownership or direct operational coordination.

First Visualisation: Local Coordinated Attacks

The visualization above demonstrates that coordinated targeting is present within local politics and municipal election discussions. It also identifies suspicious accounts that target local politicians and municipal party accounts and links those attackers when they share at least two of the same targets. It covers only local politics.

Second Visual: Attacks on All Politicians

The second visualisation demonstrates that the same phenomenon extends beyond local politics and forms a broader ecosystem of suspicious accounts targeting politicians across multiple levels of government. The high number of coordination links makes it the stronger piece of evidence for systematic coordinated behaviour.

The network includes both national and local political actors. Among the most prominent national figures are Jesse Klaver, Lidewij de Vos, Doğukan Ergin, and Ismail el Abassi. Node size reflects the level of targeting activity, with larger nodes indicating both a higher number of total replies and a greater number of unique attacker accounts. For example, Jesse Klaver received 227 replies from 201 unique attackers, while Lidewij de Vos received 320 replies from 257 unique attackers, making them among the most heavily targeted figures within the network.