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TikTok is a pivotal platform for political communication, especially among younger users. This study examines how the German rightwing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) used TikTok to disseminate populist messages and engage users during the 2024 European elections. By analyzing videos posted by AfD politicians in the three months leading up to the elections, we identified the main populist messages and assessed their impact on user engagement compared to other parties. Applying LLM-enhanced topic modeling of video transcriptions, we identified twelve themes, grouped into three types of populist discursive strategies: (1) Protectionism against Horizontal Threats, with imagined enemies on the ‘eye level’ (e.g., migrants and ‘wokeists’), (2) Protectionism against Vertical Threats, with imagined enemies being in positions of structural power (e.g., anti-elitism), and (3) Concerns of the People, with diffuse and abstract roots of the problem (e.g., fears of inflation, security, or loss of individual rights). While horizontal out-group attacks and vertical anti-elitism garnered higher average engagement, most content focused solely on anti-elite and concern-related themes. Thus, going beyond theories of right-wing populism that emphasize identity-based exclusionary rhetoric, we show that the AfD also focused on users’ concerns. This suggests a strategy aimed at resonating with voters by combining divisive messaging with relatable issues, or even prioritizing such concerns. By mainly promoting anti-elitism alongside real-world concerns – thus obscuring the extremism of its agenda and key figures – the AfD generates significantly more engagement, outperforming all other German parties combined. Our findings raise questions about right-wing populist rhetoric in online campaigning amid growing voter insecurity.

Current literature on online criminal and deviant groups recognises the role of online forums in the transfer of knowledge and socialisation of members, but current research lacks insight on the evolution and convergence of these groups. One area of concerns is how different aspects of these ideologies, most notably misogyny, anti-semitism and racism, are shared and developed between communities making up the manosphere and those dedicated to far-right themes. Current research has found overlaps in memberships across these two online groups, with growing evidence showing members’ linkage to online harassment and offline violent incidents (Farrell et al., ; Regehr,). To develop appropriate interventions to prevent such violent events, this research attempts to elucidate the different elements of the ideologies expressed in online communities known collectively as the “manosphere”, by analysing the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre’s ExtremeBB dataset. This database includes approximately 46 million posts made by more than 315 thousand registered active members on 12 different online extremist forums promoting misogyny and far-right extremism. To understand the interaction between far-right extremism and misogyny, we perform a qualitative analysis of a selection of posts already categorised by topic. Preliminary analyses show support for the following aspects: (a) similarities in radicalisation mechanisms, and (b) overlaps in the discourse on race and gender. These similarities provide potential gateways for previously isolated members to venture beyond their current association, suggesting the further adoption of extreme ideologies. Such a process, known as radicalisation, is highly correlated with extremism and terrorism (Borum, ; McCauley & Moskalenko,). Findings from this research will allow for more precise interventions.

This paper analyses the policy and legal implications related to the promotion of quality online content that supports and reinforces institutional and societal efforts to prevent, counteract and deflate radical discourses leading to violent behaviour. This analysis will focus on content disseminated via online platforms or intermediaries, and in particular on the intermediaries providing hosting services, who offer a relatively wide range of services for online storage, distribution, and sharing; social networking, collaborating and gaming; or searching and referencing.

Dounia Mahlouly puts to task online radicalisation by understanding it as a goal to create transnational audiences, using a comparative approach to discuss the cases of europe, the mena region and Southeast asia.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

In recent years, most international studies on hate speech online have focused on the three platforms traditionally considered the most influential: Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. However, their predominance as the biggest international social networks is no longer uncontested. Other networks are on the rise and young users especially lose interest in the ‘old’ platforms. In April 2019, Instagram had more active accounts globally than Twitter and came fifth in terms of global page impressions, after Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube. Additionally, recent studies into the social media use of minors and young adults showed that Instagram is more important than Facebook to users younger than 30 in several countries. Since hate groups and extremists move their propaganda to the channels where they can reach their target audience most easily, it is important to take those changes in the social media landscape into consideration. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram are all parties to the Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online, established by the European Commission in 20164, agreeing to take stronger and swifter action against hate speech on their platforms. Google+ has also joined the Code of Conduct in 2018. However, as the network was shut down in April 2019, it is no longer included in this analysis. As hate speech moderation increases on the major social media platforms, hate groups and extremists turn to other networks where community guidelines against hate speech are less strictly enforced. Some of those alternative platforms, like VK.com or Gab.ai, have acquired a broad international audience and are considered ‘safe havens’ by far-right or right-wing extremist activists. Other platforms have a more local audience or are only relevant in specific countries. This analysis offers an overview of the most prevalent social media platforms and websites used for disseminating hate speech in the countries of the sCAN project partners.