A study has found accounts with “tens of millions of views” sharing narratives about Holocaust denial and Hitler glorification.
TikTok alberga hundreds of pro-nazi accounts who use the app to promote their ideology, according to a new study.
Researchers from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) have discovered a network of 200 Nazi accounts who produced several videos of promotion of Nazism or used Nazi symbols in their profiles.
The content they found in these accounts is gathering “tens of millions of views” on the platform with narratives about holocaust denialglorifying Hitler and promoting “Nazism as the solution to contemporary problems.”
“Self-identified Nazis talk about TikTok as a platform to spread their ideology that can be used to reach many more people, even if the accounts are completely new or have few followers,” reads a summary of the report.
TikTok says it “does not constitute a violation” of its rules
Nazi groups use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in many of their videos to “create dehumanizing caricatures of non-white racial and ethnic groups“, according to the ISD report. Other videos use AI-generated translations of Adolf Hitler’s speeches to modernize your propaganda.
Certain songs, combined with Nazi images and coded languages in the app, help make other content go unnoticed by the platform moderatorsaccording to the study.
TikTok’s community guidelines state that any content that uses “stereotypes, innuendos, or indirect statements that may implicitly demean a protected group” will not be shown in the ‘feed’.
They will also be restricted various forms of misinformationsuch as conspiracy theories, repurposed media, and misinformation”potentially harmful” that is being verified. Nazi content is not explicitly mentioned in the community guidelines.
The researchers They reported 50 of these accounts to TikTok that violated the platform’s guidelines on hate ideologies. All reports returned to investigators concluded that the accounts had not committed any violations.
Other investigations have already detected that the TikTok algorithm send misogynistic content or that incite hatred to “fictitious users” within minutes of looking at the ‘feed’ in the application.
Researchers in the ISD study used a fictitious account to watch 10 videos and They accessed the pages of 10 pro-Nazi accounts before the app suggested similar content.
A coordinated effort
Nazi videos end up standing out on TikTok because there is coordination between platforms with activists on Telegram to reach broader audiences with its short-form video content, researchers say.
“Pro-Nazi activists they are coordinating to send the videos to more users, sharing downloadable images, videos and sounds to share on platforms such as TikTok,” the report continues.
An example of this coordination is an “activist” Telegram account that promoted a neo-Nazi documentary which moves some TikTok users to more explicit propaganda. The channel asks its followers to promote the film and “cover TikTok with reaction videos” so that the film goes viral.
‘Euronews Next’ contacted TikTok but, for now, has not received a response.
