Der Standard, July 19, 2020
German original: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000118823941/eine-brutstaette-des-antisemitismus
Politicians in the EU have to act against right-wing extremist videos on the Chinese platform
In a guest commentary Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, warns of rampant anti-Semitism on the Tiktok platform.
More and more videos containing anti-Semitic agitation or Holocaust denial are being disseminated via the Tiktok platform, which is particularly popular among youths. This trend is proven by current studies and has to be stopped as soon as possible.
We have seen a cross section of unbearable postings: one video features a song with the chorus “We make an excursion to Auschwitz, it is time to take a shower!” With these sounds one sees a scorpion-like robot killing people with a swastika. According to a study by the BBC the video has already been accessed more than six million times worldwide.
In another video, a young man drinks a milk-like liquid. As he complains about the strange taste, a friend explains to him that he had just poured Anne Frank’s ashes from a container into his drink. The Tiktok user with the profile name “bigmacdaddywac” received 1.3 million likes with it. Another Tiktok user shows a suntanned young man exiting a shower, set to happy music. One person, labelled as “Auschwitz guard” looks at him surprised. This is designed to suggest that concentration camp prisoners were treated well. A clear trivialization of the Shoah and its victims.
Intolerable Situation
This is how users of the China-based social media platform are familiarized with anti-Semitic stereotypes without penalty. I am appaled that these videos so far could be shared freely and without counteraction in the European Union. What is more, Tiktok is very popular among youths, about 40 percent of the 1.5 billion users worldwide are between the ages of 16 and 24.
A the I Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the University of Haifa, many Tiktok videos were analyzed between February and May 2020. There, 200 postings containing clearly right-wing extremist content were discovered, particularly denying or mocking the Shoah.
We do not want to tolerate the worldwide increase of such content any longer and demand that politicians in the EU institutions and the member states initiate legal steps against this agitation on the Internet. It is an intolerable situation when clearly anti-Semitics content is freely available on a social media platform, specifically for younger users. Because children are not born as anti-Semites, they are educated to be anti-Semites.
Legal Vacuum
The fact that right-wing extremist content is forbidden in most EU member states, with considerable punishment, while the worst hate speech can bee freely distributed via a Chinese Internet company in a legal vacuum is unbearable for the World Jewish Congress. We demand that this legal gap is closed immediately with all means possible, both legal as well as political and diplomatic. (Ronald S. Lauder, July 19, 2020)