Right-wing extremists reach millions of children and young people on platforms like TikTok. They know exactly how to package their content so that young people perceive them as normal political theses.
“Real men are right-wing,” says the AfD’s top candidate for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, in a TikTok video – and it received 1.4 million clicks. Krah, 47 years old, particularly addresses young users with his video.
He also resorts to historical revisionist tones: “Our ancestors were not criminals. We have every reason to be proud of our country and the people who built it.” And he asks them to find out “what grandma, grandpa or great-grandma did, where they came from, what they fought and suffered.”
The AfD is more successful on social networks than any other German party. The right-wing extremist AfD youth organization “Junge Alternative” (JA) also sends its ethnic-nationalist messages unfiltered on TikTok.
Erik Ahrens is a social media expert and created the TikTok channel for Maximilian Krah. Last year he made headlines with his demand that German women should be obliged to donate eggs in order to stabilize the demographics.
During a lecture at the private “Institute for State Policy”, the most important right-wing extremist think tank according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, he raved about the great reach that can be achieved through TikTok. “The way you must have felt in 1923 when you discovered radio is how I feel when I look at my TikTok accounts,” says Ahrens.
Reaches with exponential growth
TikTok is the perfect platform for right-wing extremists. More than 20 million people in Germany are on TikTok, especially young people.
Contrary to what parents often think, children and young people do not have to actively search for such videos. They come on their own, and it works like this: TikTok randomly shows each uploaded video to a certain number of people. If it is liked, commented on or even just viewed, it will also be sent to new people’s timeline.
The young users, who often do not immediately understand the sometimes extreme nature of the videos, are suggested similar content again. And again. And again. This makes exponential growth possible.
Right-wing influencers use a clever and contemporary pop culture approach to staging the videos. They accompany their speech excerpts in the state parliament with music, emojis and sarcasm. Always on a “you” basis with the users, sometimes in the style of online coaches who aim at the self-esteem of young people and want to offer them orientation.
Without control, without filter, as social media expert Ahrens said about the New Right’s videos in his lecture: “We can always put our message in our own words, beyond our own bubble, directly in front of our eyes.” The way we actually say it is how people see it.
The message is not changed by fact-checking the media. “And that is an immediate, direct, parasocial relationship, so to speak, between me as a viewer and this man on the screen,” says Ahrens.
Subtle messages also via lifestyle videos
Media scientist Daniel Hajok from the University of Erfurt warns: “Targeted propaganda is always only one part. The other is when people with a corresponding mindset give a completely normal insight into everyday life through lifestyle worlds.” Right-wing perspectives would be conveyed in a much more subtle and low-threshold manner.
The result: Young users are gradually getting used to the content and language of the right. And they get to know the faces of the New Right and the AfD. For example, that of Ulrich Siegmund, parliamentary group leader of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, which is classified by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as definitely right-wing extremist.
For example, the 33-year-old received 201,000 clicks for a TikTok video in which he tried to delegitimize the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. According to information from the research network “Correctiv”, Siegmund was also present at the meeting in the Landhaus Adlon in Potsdam.
“Influence the elections”
Like “Junge Alternative”, Siegmund is pushing forward his social media activities with a lot of effort. “There are many members who are very active, and a lot of money obviously goes into professionalizing these activities,” says political scientist Anna-Sophie Heinze Deutschlandfunk-Interview.
According to information from the research platform Correctiv, the financing of social media videos was also discussed at the Potsdam meeting. According to this, AfD leader Alice Weidel’s personal assistant, Roland Hartwig, who has now been fired, had announced that the AfD could co-finance a social media agency for right-wing influencers. According to Hartwig, the goal is to influence the elections, especially among young people: “The generation that has to turn the tide is here.”
Delete as a solution?
TikTok says it deletes content that violates the platform’s community guidelines. According to the AfD’s top EU candidate, Krah, TikTok has already deleted videos of him.
Upon request from tagesschau.de The Interior, Family and Digital Ministries refer to the EU Commission’s “Digital Service Act”. Accordingly, large platforms would have to fear severe penalties if they do not comply with the deletion of illegal content.
According to media scientist Hajok, the platforms only have to provide reporting functions for users. Only when TikTok receives a report about dubious content does the platform have to check it and, if necessary, forward it to German law enforcement authorities.
However, the videos are often borderline legally actionable and do not need to be deleted. And even if it does: According to Ahrens, a social media strategist close to the AfD, influencers on TikTok cannot be defeated even with account deletion, because “if this channel is blocked for some reason, then this person can simply create a new account “. You can then generate the same reach again within a very short time because you are already known to the target group.
Right-wing extremism expert Maik Fielitz from the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society in Jena believes that democratic content needs to have a greater reach. “And that’s why interventions in the architecture of digital networks are important,” says Fielitz. So into the algorithms of TikTok and Co.
Media scientist Hajok believes that the other parties need to be more present in today’s digital world. Otherwise, those who master the new technologies best would also have the greatest success in society as a whole.