According to political theorist Oskar Niedermayer,[9] the party sees itself as part of an international movement to shape with their term of "digital revolution" which is a circumscription for the transition into information society.

With their focus on freedom in the net and their fight against government regulations of this sphere, they caught the attention especially of the younger generation.

[10] The party supports the preservation of current civil rights in telephony and on the Internet; in particular, it opposes the European data retention policies.

The party favors the civil right to information privacy and reforms of copyright, education, genetic patents and drug policy.

[11] The Pirate Party also supports an unconditional basic income for citizens[12][13] and direct democracy via e-democracy.

Budding support for the party was galvanised by activism against online censorship laws introduced in Germany that year.

[27][28][29] In the Spring of 2012, the Pirates won seats in three other German federal states and by August 2012 the party had around 35,000 members.

[33][34] In October 2012, Der Spiegel published an article titled "Voters Growing Disillusioned with Germany's Pirate Party".

Der Spiegel opined in a September 2013 article that the Pirate Pirate could have thrived in the 2013 Federal election if it was more organised; a major issue during the campaign was the topic of spying, following revelations over the summer that the American National Security Agency was conducting large scale spying operations in Germany and France.

The sense of terminal decline was compounded days after the result when Gerwald Claus-Brunner, an assembly member who had just lost his seat, murdered a former intern before killing himself.

[34] On 27 September 2009, the Pirates received 2.0% (845,904 votes) in the 2009 German federal election, thus not securing any seats in the Bundestag.

In May 2012, they won 8.2% of the vote in Schleswig-Holstein, which was sufficient to enter the state parliament, gaining six seats, being led by Torge Schmidt from 2013 until 2017.

[49] However, after a string of scandals[50][34] and internal disputes which were handled unprofessionally and picked up by the media, the party lost the trust of voters and entered a steady decline in polls.

Their previous vote of 8.9% achieved in 2011 fell to 1.7% and the Pirate Party lost all representation in the Berlin State assembly.

The poor result was compounded by the murder-suicide of former Pirate Party assembly member Gerwald Claus-Brunner.