ISIS fighters conveyed a message of condolence to President François Hollande and the French people for the murderers of the Charlie Hebdo journalists, the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly, in a video message transmitted over the Internet on February 4, 2015. (Photo: Balkis Press/ABACAPRESS.COM)
TikTok has emerged as an extremely popular social media platform among millions of young people around the world. Although it is primarily used for entertainment purposes, some have exploited it as an effective tool to radicalize, recruit, and influence young Muslims in Europe and Western countries to carry out terrorist attacks.
The massacre of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas on Oct. 7 has reportedly galvanized a phenomenon known as “TikTok jihad” in Europe and elsewhere. Influencers these days are speaking a language that appeals to younger, Gen Z social media users.
At least six Islamic extremist terror attacks have been carried out in Europe since October 7, and European intelligence and security services have thwarted 20 planned attacks. The threat of Islamic extremist terrorism in Europe was recently highlighted when Austrian security authorities arrested two teenagers who had pledged alliance with the Islamic State (IS) and were allegedly planning a terror attack at a Taylor Swift concert in the Austrian capital.
TikTok’s broad reach and algorithms have made it a favored platform for recruiting young radicalized Muslim “lone wolves” who plan terror attacks in Western countries. Additionally, Telegram channels are being used to coordinate attacks and connect terrorist operatives through virtual networks.
Unlike terrorist attacks perpetrated by large-scale terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, the virtual recruitment of new terrorists and individual “lone wolf” terrorist suspects poses major challenges for security agencies to identify threats in real time and prevent terrorist attacks.
In December, a radical Islamist in his 20s carried out a terrorist attack in Paris, killing one German tourist and wounding two others. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne quickly condemned the attack and vowed to step up efforts to combat the terrorist threat. “We will not give in to terror. Never,” Borne wrote on Twitter.
Islamist movements and global terrorism pose a serious threat to Western societies, particularly targeting Israel and Jewish communities who face anti-Semitism online.
Global terrorism and the rise of Islamist movements remain threats to Western societies, and the rise of online anti-Semitism has increasingly targeted the State of Israel and its Jewish communities.
Jewish celebrities have criticized TikTok for enabling the mass dissemination of anti-Semitism online.
“What's happening on TikTok is creating the biggest anti-Semitic movement since the Nazis,” Sacha Baron Cohen, the Jewish British actor and comedian, said in a statement in November.
According to Ynet, the poor integration of Europe's large and growing Muslim communities is leading to the formation of parallel settler societies that are particularly susceptible to anti-Israel propaganda online and via television networks such as Qatar-based Al Jazeera.
In March, a 50-year-old Jew was attacked in Zurich, Switzerland, by a young Muslim immigrant who shouted “death to the Jews.” The 15-year-old assailant from Tunisia said he belonged to the Islamic State and had threatened to attack Jews and synagogues.
In April, German authorities arrested two radical Muslim teenagers in Duesseldorf who were planning terror attacks on churches and police stations on behalf of the Islamic State.
In June, Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunez warned that Islamic extremist terrorism poses a major security threat to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
“Although there is no clear threat yet against the Olympics or against our country, we recall that at the end of May two individuals were arrested in Saint-Etienne and were plotting a direct target for the Olympics,” Nunez said.
Terrorism against Western countries and Jews is by no means limited to Europe. On Saturday, a young man stabbed a young Jewish man near Chabad's headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, while shouting “Liberate Palestine.”
