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The video platform TikTok has been criticized for spreading unfiltered hate speech
Photo: Monika Skolimowska / dpa
On the occasion of the international Safer Internet Day, the Anne Frank educational institution took a look at the role of the TikTok platform in spreading anti-Semitic theses. Their conclusion: TikTok particularly contributes to the radicalization of young people. The educational institution presented a corresponding report on Monday in Frankfurt am Main.
It says that hate preachers spread anti-Semitism and racism on the platform. “No other social medium provides such a vulnerable target group with such disturbing content – largely without supervision,” criticizes the educational institution. "Teachers report how students suddenly come to school with terrorism-trivial, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and unwavering positions on the Middle East conflict - as if they had become radicalized overnight." According to their observation, of all social media, the video platform TikTok in particular is contributing to a "Speed -Radicalization of young people”.
Posts on TikTok question whether the massacre on October 7th even took place or attribute it to the Israeli government. AI-generated images of supposedly killed Palestinian children are being shared millions of times to serve anti-Semitic motives.
“High-reach influencers who otherwise share lifestyle content or make-up tips are suddenly spreading one-sided, shortened and clearly tendentious representations of the Middle East conflict and thus emotionalizing their predominantly very young and poorly informed followers,” writes the organization. "It's a war of images and claims in which individuals can hardly find their way."
TikTok must be taken seriously as a platform for political opinion formation. Eva Berendsen from the educational institution called on politicians to urgently hold the companies behind social platforms accountable in order to take effective and consistent action against anti-Semitic and racist hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy narratives. At the same time, consistent investments must be made in digital education and the presence of “digital street workers” expanded.
On October 7, terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups carried out an unprecedented massacre in Israel near the Gaza border. It was the trigger for the Gaza war.
zob/dpa