Be it school shootings, racist or anti-Semitic attacks: you can basically set the clock based on when such incidents will be debated online. There is not only horror or sympathy for the victims and their survivors. A so-called fan scene celebrates the perpetrators. The Baden-Württemberg State Institute for Communication (LFK) took a closer look at the phenomenon as part of a key analysis.
What is the “assassin fan scene”?
Content that pays homage to assassins or gunmen is circulating on social networks. Users heroize them, suggest romantic or friendly relationships with them, or glorify, trivialize or approve of their actions.
With regard to right-wing terrorists, the Baden-Württemberg Office for the Protection of the Constitution notes that online actors in the “assassin fan scene” are often quite young. “Nevertheless, they have an extreme affinity for violence, which means that they continue to radicalize both themselves and other people within the scene.”
How dangerous is that?
On the one hand, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in extreme cases people are motivated to implement violent fantasies. “The assassin fan scene is also considered particularly dangerous because it reinforces itself,” says the LFK focus analysis. Every act of violence could lead to a new wave of fan content.
On the other hand, such representations and comments can violate youth protection law, as emphasized by the LFK, which is responsible for youth media protection on the Internet. If crimes are condoned, this could also be criminally relevant.
What does such content look like?
Very different: There are AI-generated videos in which perpetrators are shown dancing while the number of murdered victims is shown (rampage dance videos). There are gameplay videos in which attacks or rampages are reenacted. “The aim is often to outdo the actual act,” says an LFK expert. For example, the re-enacted attack on the synagogue in Halle (Saale) is about getting into the building and killing there, unlike the real perpetrator.
In order to prevent videos from being found and deleted quickly, creators of such content use paraphrases, emojis or modified spellings (Algospeak). For example, perpetrators are referred to as "actors", hashtags suggest a fictitious event, and in texts it says in relation to the number of victims that perpetrators gave out so many "hugs"/"gifts".
What specific examples are there?
In July, a 16-year-old seriously injured two students at a high school in Schongau, Upper Bavaria, with a knife. According to investigators, the Croatian is said to have glorified mass shootings on social networks. This is also being discussed in connection with a fatal sword attack on a 17-year-old in Fagersta, Sweden, in August.
What did the LFK investigate?
The LFK examined how easily minors can come into contact with such content on TikTok. According to her own information, she created an account with a user age of 16 and simulated an interest in the relevant material for the algorithm. The authority specifically chose TikTok because there are a particularly large number of children and young people there.
What came out of it?
After the algorithm was “trained,” more than a fifth of the videos played on the For You page made supportive references to assassins or gunmen. The LFK also found that when entering first names into the search field, the last names of perpetrators or terms from the scene were often suggested.
In the desktop version, there are AI summaries automatically generated by TikTok, which pick up on the distorting representations and choice of words from user descriptions - and sometimes take the whole thing further, for example by asking what an “actor” should do next.
If the LFK initially suggested removal via user reports, this content - with two exceptions - was only removed after subsequent reports via a separate reporting portal for authorities. Even if problematic content was deleted, it quickly reappeared in a similar form or on other accounts.
What does TikTok say about this?
The company did not initially respond to a request from the German Press Agency. In previous statements about hate speech, extremism and radicalization, TikTok distances itself from the spread of hateful ideologies. Promoting violent or hateful actors is prohibited. The majority of reported content is removed within 24 hours. Many before they are even reported.
Is TikTok the only social network that celebrates assassins?
No. At the beginning of the year, the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office and the public prosecutor's offices in Stuttgart and Munich said they presented the world's first criminological study on the German "terror scene". It's about a right-wing extremist network that advocates and propagates terrorist violence, primarily via the Telegram messenger service. “Attacks and atrocities are glorified and imitation is encouraged,” it said.
What happens now?
The LFK has handed over its findings to the relevant authorities at European level so that the European Commission can examine possible violations and include them in proceedings against TikTok. She is also in contact with law enforcement authorities such as the Federal Criminal Police Office.
What to do?
Among other things, the LFK demands that perpetrator names and alternative terms be consistently blocked during searches and that no AI summaries be created. Furthermore, moderation should be improved and responses to user tips should be responded to more quickly.
In order to reduce the risk of identification with the perpetrators and not to encourage copycat crimes, the experts recommend not to focus too much on the sheer number of deaths in reports about crimes, not to oversimplify the motives of the crime and neither to mention the names of the perpetrators nor to show photos of them.
