ISD uncovers hundreds of neo-Nazi accounts on TikTok in exclusive shared with WIRED

In a Dispatch shared exclusively with WIRED, ISD uncovered hundreds of white supremacist and neo-Nazi accounts glorifying Hitler-related content on TikTok. This content was then found being promoted to new users on the platform. 

ISD Senior Digital Methods Manager Nathan Doctor, who authored the report, initially uncovered a neo-Nazi account a year ago.This discovery unmasked a much broader network of accounts boosting viewership of neo-Nazi narratives by liking, sharing, and commenting on each other’s content. 

A key example of this activity uncovered by ISD is the promotion of clips of the neo-Nazi documentary Europa: The Last Battle with the aim of making the content go viral on TikTok.One account posting such snippets received nearly 900,000 views. 

As outlined in the Dispatch, a key issue in clamping down on neo-Nazi content on TikTok has been the use of coded language. Acronyms, numbers and euphemisms are used as “countermeasures to evade moderation” in order to amplify both English and non-English language content. 

“Despite seeing content in other languages, you can still pretty quickly recognize what it means,” said Nathan. “The coded nature of it isn’t an excuse, because if it’s pretty easily recognizable to someone in another language, it should be recognizable to TikTok as well.” Nathan further added that while many of the identified accounts are US based, the network is international, with content being shared in French, Hungarian and German, with groups active in Mexico and Latin America. 

Nathan notes that despite finding no evidence to imply international coordination, the accounts “were definitely engaging with each others’ content.” In the comments section, he notes how European English-speaking accounts reacted “with praise” towards Russian-language pro-Nazi content. Beyond individual accounts and groups, ISD also uncovered far-right organizations openly recruiting on the platform. 

ISD reported 50 accounts for breaching TikTok’s policies on hate speech, encouragement of violence against protected groups, promoting hateful ideologies, celebrating violent extremists, and Holocaust denial. Initially TikTok found no violations, and allowed accounts to remain active. However, a month later around half were banned, by which point they had accumulated about 2 million views.