Description: A coordinated neo-Nazi network on TikTok used AI-generated media, including Hitler speeches, to spread Nazi propaganda and extremist content, violating TikTok’s hate speech policies. The network evaded platform moderation through coded language, imagery, and music, with some accounts accumulating millions of views. TikTok’s algorithm further amplified the reach of this content, despite community guidelines.
Editor Notes: Reconstructing the timeline of events: On February 6, 2023, an account with violent antisemitic content calling for armed revolution began posting on TikTok. In May 2024, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) created two dummy accounts to track how TikTok's algorithm recommended pro-Nazi content. By June 3, 2024, ISD had identified a Nazi account that had accumulated over 87,000 views before being banned. Despite this, on June 6, 2024, a heavily extremist pro-Nazi account remained active, recruiting members to off-platform groups. Finally, on July 29, 2024, ISD published its full report, revealing a coordinated network of over 200 accounts promoting Nazism and extremist content, some of which used AI-generated media to bypass TikTok’s moderation efforts. For this incident ID, I am taking the ISD's date of publication for their findings as the incident date.
Note on "NazTok": The ISD report uses the term "NazTok" in their title for the report as a shorthand for "Nazi TikTok" while not explicitly defining their use of this term beyond that inferred meaning. I am replicating "NazTok" in the Deployers field to tie likely new incidents that will emerge together in this particular genre of incident. I have retroactively applied "NazTok" to Incident 809's Deployer field too.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Pro-Nazi TikTok accounts developed an AI system deployed by Unknown AI developers, which harmed TikTok users.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
810
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2024-07-29
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
isdglobal.org · 2024
- View the original report at its source
- View the report at the Internet Archive
Self-identified Nazis are openly promoting hate speech and real-world recruitment on TikTok. Not only is the platform failing to remove these videos and accounts, but its algorithm is amplifying their reach.
Content warning: This report inc…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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