Eine deutsche Version dieses Berichts finden Sie hier.
Summary
We identified 27 accounts on TikTok supporting the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party that violate TikTok’s rules for accounts – making it unclear who is behind these profiles. Some of these accounts have a significant number of followers. The other German political parties largely abide by TikTok’s rules and do not benefit from unclear political accounts.
The problem is not new. TikTok has partially acknowledged it in the past and removed opaque pro-AfD accounts before the European Parliament elections following our reporting. After publishing four reports on this issue, we recommended not only that TikTok enforces its own rules, but also that it changes its lax platform policy in light of its obligations under the Digital Services Act. TikTok could take inspiration from the way other platforms deal with political accounts.
Our Findings
Four months after our review of political accounts on TikTok found that the company was not applying its own policy, we again examined the presence of German political parties on the platform. Germany is due to hold general elections in 2025, and all relevant companies should ensure the integrity of the online information system. Similar to last time, our findings suggest that the Chinese-owned company is allowing far-right parties to proliferate in violation of its own policies.
We have found the accounts below, which support the AfD or its candidates, in violation of TikTok’s own rules. They are not accounts verified as political parties, nor do they provide information about what type of account they represent, but they use the AfD logo or faces of AfD politicians. TikTok’s policy notes that “parody or fan-based accounts must be clearly disclosed in the account name (note that this is different from the @username”). The policy also prohibits impersonation and promises that accounts have authentic identities.
These accounts create an ecosystem of supportive profiles, helping the overall visibility of AfD content on TikTok.
TikTok’s Response
We shared our findings with TikTok, which removed 25 of the 27 reported accounts in the week of 21 October. The company asked us on 25 October to highlight their point of view: “To protect TikTok’s integrity, we prohibit impersonation and help political accounts apply for verified badges. We remove 96% of the content that violates our Integrity policies before anyone reports it, and we have banned these accounts. We protect our platform’s integrity by prohibiting impersonation, helping political accounts apply for verified badges, and partnering with experts to seek feedback on our approach and launch media literacy initiatives that have garnered hundreds of millions of views across Europe.”
Inauthentic accounts
The accounts we identified are:
https://www.tiktok.com/@afdinfo 127, 000 followers
https://www.tiktok.com/@wirsinddasvolkde 96, 000
https://www.tiktok.com/@alic.weidel.afd 64, 000
https://www.tiktok.com/@maximilian.krah.afd 56, 000
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd.edit.tv 59, 000
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_supporter1 24, 000 (TikTok guidelines require fan designation in the account name, not in the user name)
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd.support2 12, 000
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd.clips.44 10, 800
https://www.tiktok.com/@cris69901 6, 400
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd.fanp 5, 800
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_highlights 5, 300
https://www.tiktok.com/ 2K (generic link, screenshot below)
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd1.23 1, 700
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_88_1161 1, 600
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_fan2 1, 500
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd545 1, 500
https://www.tiktok.com/@afdistzukunft 1, 500
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd7803 1, 400
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd.liebe 1, 400
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_acount 1, 300
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_auf_die_1_ 1, 300
https://www.tiktok.com/@nurdieafd21 1, 200
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd2442 1, 100
https://www.tiktok.com/@eugetgkdkdbd6 1, 100
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_fuerdeutschland 1, 100
A few more accounts show some indication of impersonation, namely:
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd.osnabrueck 20, 800
https://www.tiktok.com/@afd_bayern_ 1, 100
Recommendations
As in the past, we recommend that:
- TikTok systematically applies its own policies to all political parties.
- TikTok changes these policies to make abuse more difficult. Under the current rules, it is extremely easy for a political party to create many supporting accounts without any accountability. Its rules on political parties are pointless with so many other ways available for creating pro-party or accounts (but note that this report is about violation of the existing, already weak rules). The other major platforms have more stringent rules for political accounts and, in the US, TikTok applies stricter rules to political accounts, such as making verified labels mandatory.
- The European Commission requests information from TikTok on how it ensures the respect of its own policies and the rationale of its lax policies on political accounts in the EU (the policies are more restrictive in the US than in the EU).
These recommendations are explained in more detail in our last report here.
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