Right-wing extremist propaganda on TikTok: Interview with Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR)

The US elections have been decided and Donald Trump may take office as US President for the second time in 2025. Despite racist, misogynistic and conspiracy ideology statements during the election campaign, he was able to win around 77 million votes – a shock for many people. However, we are also familiar with this far-right propaganda in Europe and it falls on fertile ground, especially on digital platforms such as TikTok.

We spoke to Daniela Pisoiu from SCENOR about this. She explains the strategies and appeal behind far-right propaganda on TikTok. In this episode, you can find out what impact this has on our society and whether there could also be a Donald Trump in German-speaking countries.

This interview was conducted in November 2024 and launched in a podcast episode (in German) on our modus|extrem podcast in December 2024: https://modus-extrem.podigee.io/30-rechtsextreme-propaganda-auf-tiktok

Michael (modus|zad): Leonie It actually happened. He’s back and of course you know who I’m talking about, right?

Leonie (modus|zad): Well, it can only be Donald Trump, right?

Michael (modus|zad): Exactly, and although Halloween is long behind us, this time he has a real cabinet of horrors with him for his time in office.

Leonie (modus|zad): Yes, you could say that. From anti-vaccination campaigners to right-wing TV presenters to conspiracy believers, there really is everything.

Michael (modus|zad): Yes, it definitely sends shivers down your spine, even with the projects that Trump has planned for his time in office, at least if you look at what he said at his election rallies.

Leonie (modus|zad): Yes, conspiracy ideologies, racist remarks, misogynistic policies and, above all, the topic of migration was really omnipresent. There was almost no performance without incitement against migrant women.

Michael (modus|zad): Yes, and Trump is really stirring up fear, regardless of the consequences. For example, he talks about a mass invasion, about murderers, rapists and drug dealers from whom he will rid the country.

Leonie (modus|zad): Or he claims that illegal immigrants are poisoning the blood of his country in quotation marks.

Interview excerpt Donald Trump: “Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from presents we know they come from mental institutions and sane asylums, they are terrorists. Nobody has ever seen, and you think like we’re witnessing right now. It’s a very set thing for a country, it’s poisoning the blood of a country, it’s so bad and people a coming in with disease, people coming in with every possible thing that you can ever imagine”.

Leonie (modus|zad): In 2016, the focus was even more on the planned wall with Mexico. But this year, he has really announced the biggest mass deportations in the history of the USA.

Michael (modus|zad): And the guy really has become president, for the second time. But the whole right-wing populist agitation in the election campaign around the topic of migration is of course nothing new, and we’re currently seeing it here in Europe too.

Leonie (modus|zad): That’s right, and a lot of this lurid, racist and populist content is of course also taking place online. And yes, especially on TikTok again, of course.

Michael (modus|zad): Always this TikTok. But yes, it’s a popular platform for spreading hate and hate speech online, especially in the far-right spectrum. We’ve already talked about this in our episode on elections and rights, which we’ll link to again in the show notes, and you’ve already guessed it, today’s episode is once again about TikTok and how far-right actors use the platform for themselves, so welcome to modus|extrem.

Leonie (modus|zad): OK, so it really feels like right-wing extremists have infiltrated platforms like TikTok. But how exactly do they go about it?

Michael (modus|zad): Good question, I also asked Daniela Pisoiu. Among other things, she is the scientific director of SCENOR and also coordinates the RECO_DAR project, which we have already presented here in the podcast. The project is about research into the presence of hate speech on TikTok in the far-right spectrum. Otherwise, Daniela mainly researches radicalization processes and online aspects of extremism, terrorism and online propaganda.

Leonie (modus|zad): Oh yes, that sounds exciting.

Michael (modus|zad): I think so too. I had the opportunity to talk to her about the behavior of right-wing extremists on TikTok and I’ll say this much, Donald Trump was also a topic.

Leonie (modus|zad): Okay nice cliffhanger, yes, then have fun with the interview.

[Interview with Daniela Pisoiu]

Michael (modus|zad): Hi Daniela, great that you’re here today and that you’re taking the time to talk to me.

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): Thanks for the invitation.

Michael (modus|zad): Daniela, you are doing research in the RECO_DAR project on TikTok. How is it possible to conduct research there and what methods did you use to understand how actors in the far-right spectrum argue?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): We used several types of methods, qualitative methods on the one hand, but also qualitative methods on the other. We started by looking for indicators in the first place, because of course TikTok is known to be very large, which means that we were originally looking for ways to identify our actors, i.e. the accounts we were interested in, i.e. right-wing extremist, right-wing populist actors. And we did this on the basis of interviews with experts in this field, for example, but there were also certain words in the literature that we then used to search for accounts. Of course, there are also some that are very well known, so you don’t have to search for them, they are already very prominent.

And then also with a snowball effect, because these accounts are linked to each other and then, in a first step, we were able to identify so-called communities, i.e. accounts that are very strongly linked to each other, and then we also found that certain ideologies or parts were particularly prominent in these communities. And then what we are now doing, which is very exciting, is trying to understand how these actors actually speak, how they argue, how they try to convince their audience, and that can only be done using qualitative methods, because here it is really about understanding how the stories are formulated, i.e. which narratives are told. We used a specific method of analysis for this purpose. It’s called interpretive framework analysis, which is a very compact way of putting it.

We try to determine which problems, causes and solutions are presented in the discourse and also which resonance criteria are applied, so by resonance criteria I mean things such as special values or cultural or historical references or other things that are important for the audience. As well as, for example, evidence or quasi-evidence. So these are all elements that make a discourse convincing. This method has already been developed in other strands of literature, especially in literature on social movements, and we know that when such elements are present, the discourse is particularly convincing. In other words, we specifically looked for these kinds of components in our material. Of course, you can’t evaluate everything so qualitatively, so in great detail, which means that we selected a random sample from the year 2023 between summer and fall and from this we also evaluated certain accounts that were particularly prominent in the scene, a total of 108 videos.

Michael (modus|zad): What would you say were the most exciting observations in the project and was there perhaps something that totally surprised you?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): Yes, on the one hand it was very interesting to see that all the accounts were very well networked with each other, so there is this community that we found, but actually the whole scene is very well networked with each other, which was also surprising, for example you may have heard this term, “saladbar” ideology, so that nowadays in these extremist scenes, so to speak, people use different pots and simply combine different elements from different ideologies and in this case it was partly like that. So we had a lot of elements that could be seen everywhere, but there were also certain accents, depending on which community it was, perhaps not very surprising, but still somehow.

So the extent was perhaps surprising in terms of the solution. As I said earlier, you identify certain problems, which of course have to be very serious and even existentially threatening, and then you propose solutions. We know from the literature on populism, for example, that very little time is actually spent on the solution, so in a large part of the discourse, it’s actually more about the problems and how serious they are. But populists usually have no or few solutions and in this case that was to be expected on the one hand, but really how little, how thin, so to speak, the soup was actually when it came to solutions, was somewhat surprising, especially because the solution itself, apart from of course the indications that you should definitely vote for right-wing populist parties, but otherwise the solutions themselves were also very destructive, for example that you shouldn’t trust the media, that you shouldn’t trust Islam anymore. In other words, they tried to delegitimize all of this to a certain extent, to destroy it.

 But there’s no alternative to it, no alternative at all, so to speak. Yes, a constructive idea. How can you actually deal with all these crises? Well, of course we specifically looked for hate speech in the project and what we found was that there is already hate speech, and a lot of it, yes, but mainly in an indirect way, i.e. a way that is not punishable in and of itself. So you can also see here how clever these actors are at getting their message out into the world in such a way that it is very harmful, but at the same time they can also protect themselves very well by not using this hate speech directly, but indirectly, for example through humor or through a certain context or comparisons. And that’s also a problem for the legal part of the story, of course, because you can’t really do anything about it.

Michael (modus|zad): Yes, it seems that right-wing extremist propaganda has a certain appeal to some people, why do you think that is?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): Well, there are certain classic themes or classic explanations that we have of course also seen in our data. For example, the fact that such messages are very successful in times of crisis, i.e. these are actors who specifically address these uncertainties, the crises. And they are very good at tapping into certain emotions, such as outrage or despair. So the propaganda is very emotionalizing, as you would expect, and as I said, you identify these very serious problems, which are almost existential, in the propaganda.

So these are things that we already knew, so to speak. We also knew that they work very well with fear, for example, i.e. feelings of fear, influences of fear, fear for the future, especially the financial future and so on, but something that was quite new, so to speak, and wasn’t even actually present in the methodology per se, is a new kind of framing and framing, an identity, that is, an identity that you try to elicit very strongly by splitting society in two. So you divide between, let’s say, “real Germans”, “real Austrians” and the rest. And this rest naturally includes not only foreigners, Muslims and so on, but also left-wing, green, LGBTQ people, in other words everything that doesn’t fit this image, so to speak. And this image is very precisely defined, conservative of course, straight, and a lot is invested in this representation of how we are and how we are not, working with words such as genuine or strong or work, work ethic.

So these are people who are, so to speak, very good and very, very happy to work. People who naturally dress accordingly, so what you wear, what you are, is extremely important and you could say, OK, you can do that, why not, yes, you can do something like that if you want to. There are also a lot of subcultures, for example, that do exactly that, so there is a distancing of people, so to speak, we are different, we are like this. But the problem here is that this image is not only different, but it is, so to speak, hostile to the others, so the others are a threat to themselves. First of all, they are worth less than themselves. Yes, so they are worth less, but they are also a threat, a threat that you have to fight, so to speak, and that is the problem, apart from the polarization that automatically arises in society.

Michael (modus|zad): Yes, that certainly sounds very scary. What do you think, what impact do such right-wing extremist narratives have on our society and also on politics?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): Well, I think we can already see certain effects. On the one hand, we have had this phenomenon of the normalization of right-wing extremist ideas for a while now, i.e. that certain right-wing extremist ideas are being adopted by conservative parties, and to some extent also by left-wing parties. The idea is that they can win more votes there. And we know from research – other research, not our research – on right-wing populist parties and this mainstreaming that, in a first step, conservative parties, for example, actually get more votes with this tactic, but only in the first election, and then no longer in the next one, so to speak, which means that in the long term these right-wing extremist, right-wing populist parties are extremely strengthened because suddenly these ideas, which were perhaps previously considered unacceptable, have now become socially acceptable.

The other effect is this polarization, for example, it’s very interesting, even for me, to hear or read in the newspapers that many parties are now somehow working to reconcile, to come together again, and there is an assumption that this is the case or has happened because of some anti-Covid measures and so on, for example, but I don’t think people know or have really realized that. This division didn’t just happen, it was really pushed by these radical right-wing discourses. So it didn’t come about through any measures or just naturally, but it was really pushed and you can see that immediately when you look at these videos, for example, how society is suddenly divided into two separate camps and not only divided, but also judged. What is good, what is bad, what should be defended, what should be destroyed. That’s why it’s perhaps an indirect effect, you may not even be aware of it or you may not even be aware of the strategy behind it and how well it works, but ultimately I think what’s happening here has a very, very strong effect on democracy, a negative effect.

If you compare such discourse with individual acts of violence, these acts of violence are certainly perceived as very threatening at the moment, and a lot is being done about them. But what we have here is a very insidious phenomenon that will have a much stronger negative impact on democracy. Why? Because what we are seeing is a loss of trust in democracy, government, parties, media, and this is constantly being communicated, so to speak, that they should not be trusted, because that means very important elements of democracy are being delegitimized, so to speak, and not only that, but what is being proposed instead are ideas, that are clearly anti-democratic, such as a strong leadership, yes, a strong political leadership, hierarchical leadership, something that sounds like other times, so to speak, and the moment you vote for such parties, then this dystopia or this past somehow becomes probable for the future.

Michael (modus|zad): What would you say is the role of external actors, i.e. those outside Germany or perhaps outside Europe? And is there perhaps also a geopolitical context?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): Yes, I think there is a general focus on this topic at the European level, for example, in terms of the way people express themselves, what unwanted influences there are, which of course also means Islamist influences, but also influences that have to do with the far right, so to speak, and Russia is really at the forefront here. We are already familiar with channels that spread fake news and so on from the coronavirus era, but beyond that and of course before that, there was very close cooperation between the Russian regime and far-right actors in Europe. And it is not clear what the interest could be here in cooperating with Russia, except financially, which happens from time to time. But for Russia it is absolutely clear what advantages this brings, because of course we are no longer just talking about a regular war, but also about so-called hybrid threats. And disinformation plays a very, very important role here. And I would also include this cooperation with radical right-wing actors, because what they do is of course spread this disinformation and of course also a great deal of skepticism about the war in Ukraine.

So that’s a very central issue and it’s interesting to see how people are campaigning against it, so to speak, with what wording, so it’s not said, yes, so it’s not addressed directly in the sense of: Who is right? Ukraine or Russia? Instead, they say, well, it’s actually about finances, it’s about money and the whole thing is embedded, so to speak, in a conspiracy theory of the establishment, which intends to make people here poorer by actually spending money on Ukraine. In other words, I’m not dealing with the war or the political situation, but rather producing a conspiracy theory that actually has several parts. So you are of the opinion, and this is also how you explain why the financial crisis, why the inflation and so on exists, yes, it is typically explained very simply, as the populists always do, and not by the very complicated circumstances. Instead, they say, OK, no, the establishment is up to this, so to speak. It’s done on purpose, so to speak, so that we here become poorer and so that others, our enemies or simply the others become rich. And that’s also how global political events are classified, for example.

Michael (modus|zad): So, we’ve just had the US elections and Donald Trump has been elected president for the second time. What parallels do you see between the German-speaking far-right discourse and that of the Trump campaign?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): So, above all, definitely thematically, although we should perhaps not forget this image of the strong man that is also being used here again. But apart from that, there are of course certain topics that are addressed. And the migration issue is a very clear parallel. But there is also an issue of identity. What I mentioned earlier, how people try to construct, to reconstruct, so to speak. It’s interesting how the whole thing is presented so manipulatively, on the one hand at the beginning. Sometimes there’s an image of the almost end of the world, yes, so society in the West is on the brink of collapse, so to speak. Yes, some even talk about themselves. As the last generation. Yes, because they will soon be wiped out, so to speak, in this propaganda, this context, or there will be a civil war and so on, so it’s this gloomy vision of the future, so to speak, and then you come along with this strong identitarian image to say, no, we have something to offer, we are proud, we will become powerful again, we will become rich again, so these elements, which are actually, and I think that’s also a bit of the art in it, they are elements that in and of themselves have to do with people’s everyday lives.

So if you ask people on the street what the most important worries are, then it’s certainly the worries that have to do with money and that you can buy less in the supermarket now than you used to. And then someone comes along and says, you know what, that will soon be history, we’ll all be rich again and proud and powerful, and these are narratives that obviously resonate with people and with enough people to get votes, which is also a parallel. The externalization of the causes of various crises. So it’s another one of those tactics where you don’t actually talk about the facts at all, but instead immediately want to identify those responsible or the causes and they are always from outside. Yes, so we and this image of us is actually pretty perfect, but the reason why we’re doing badly now is because of others or because of events or countries or migrants from abroad. So that’s another parallel that you can see quite clearly.

Michael (modus|zad): Do you think that a Donald Trump would also be possible in German-speaking countries, or does he perhaps already exist?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): In and of itself, there is still a difference and that has to do with history, because Americans don’t have the history of Europeans and don’t have any specific experience of National Socialism. And what that can lead to is that, on the one hand, it is perhaps easier for them to ignore certain things, and it is perhaps more difficult for us to ignore certain things. We also see in the legislation, for example, that swastikas and swastikas are not banned there, so as a neo-Nazi you definitely have more freedom there than here. And I think that’s something that might help us in the long term. And you also have to take a look at the political system. The left in Europe is not like the left in America. America as a whole is much more conservative, although of course we see extremes time and again, but one idea that many people there have supported, for example, is to say that a woman could never become president. In other words, a woman does not have the skills required for the presidency, so of course it is no longer common for us here to say or think that.

So I also think that society is perhaps fundamentally oriented differently here than it is there. But that being said, you mustn’t forget that this is a bit of a negative point or minus point, which we have surprisingly seen here, is that many young people also vote for radical right-wing parties, which seem to be a bit different in the USA. At least in terms of age. The younger the person, the more likely they are to have voted for the Democrats, but here we can already see that radical right-wing parties are also very successful at advertising among young people. Their propaganda is also very well formulated and very well designed to reach this target group, and they seem to be relatively successful. And that’s worrying when you consider that, well, these memories of history will be history at some point, so I can visualize it that way. So, it’s systemic, it’s systemically taught in schools, in the education system, to have a certain attitude towards National Socialism and that’s also being worked on a bit now, for example in the TikTok propaganda that we’ve seen. And of course they don’t directly say, no, it’s a lie, National Socialism was something really great, but they worked around it and tried to rehabilitate parts of this history. For example, pictures of art are shown, i.e. art from back then, or statements such as, for example, we should honor our grandfathers and our ancestors and so on. After all, they fought for us in the war. So, it’s an initial attempt to present the past in a different way than we were used to, and that’s also a strategy that can perhaps lead to a change in the population’s attitude towards National Socialism.

Michael (modus|zad): We’ve already talked about the fact that there are various subcultures in the right-wing extremist spectrum. What challenges do you see in preventing hate speech in these different subcultures and why is it important to take these differences into account?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): Well, they are different ways of expressing themselves and it is true on the one hand that there are several bubbles, you could say, or communities and they clearly have different emphases. But overall, the topics are actually quite similar, and when it comes to what needs to be done, the solutions are usually the same. Yes, but that means that you probably wouldn’t have to do very much differently in terms of topics. As far as the means are concerned, i.e. how can I communicate something, it mainly makes a difference which age group and which medium it is. For example, if you want to appeal to a younger audience, then you should definitely work with short messages and try to communicate in a pop-cultural way. In other words, you have to adapt to the lifestyle of the respective target group.

We see, for example, that depending on whether it’s an older audience, it’s often speeches or very emotional meetings with certain people, let’s say. For example, political candidates with people from the public. So typical images from the lives of these people are shown and there’s not a lot of decoration, there might be music in the background, that’s about it. But for a younger audience, you have to present things a little differently, visually too, and it has to be exciting in some way, so the measures also have to be in the right form. For example, one method that is now being used more and more is games, but that’s something you can really only do with a young audience. Also because games are really very, very target group-specific. And firstly, older people might not be very interested in it and they can’t use the mechanics very well. So you try to keep up, but you have to say that when it comes to prevention work, you’re always a bit behind. The extremists are of course much, much more skillful and much more up to date with the technology that is available, including the topics that they can address. So all in all, you actually have to make much more of an effort than you have so far.

Michael (modus|zad): Would you say that right-wing extremists use different communication strategies on different social media platforms?

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): There is definitely a clear difference, for example between TikTok and Telegram. We also looked at Telegram in the project and it’s a bit of a parallel, like in the Islamist milieu, for example. The messages on Telegram are much more extreme and direct. So when it comes to the solution, it’s not just OK, vote right or whatever, but you also find ideas such as revolution, overthrow and things like that. So what you see is that actors not only adapt to the format of the respective platform, so to speak, but also take into account the extent to which they can be discovered, so to speak. So what can you say on TikTok and what can you say on Telegram with the idea that these things are actually much more difficult to find on Telegram.

Michael (modus|zad): OK, then we’ve already reached the end. Thank you very much, Daniela, for your time and the insights into your work, and I hope you have a great day.

Daniela Pisoiu (SCENOR): Thank you too.

Michael (modus|zad): Yes, that’s it again for today on modus|extrem. Thank you for listening and I look forward to the next time. Take care.

This episode is part of the RECO_DAR project and is funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission, neither the European Union nor the funding body can be held responsible for them.