'TikTok Jihad' on the rise in Europe following Hamas Oct 7 attack

Read this article in:

TikTok has emerged as a very popular social media platform among millions of young people around the world. While it is primarily used for entertainment, some have exploited TikTok as an effective tool to radicalize and recruit young Muslims in Europe and the West, influencing them to carry out terrorist attacks.

The Hamas Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis has reportedly bolstered the phenomenon known as “TikTok Jihad" in Europe and beyond. Influencers nowadays speak in a language that appeals to young Gen Z social media users.

At least six Islamist terror attacks have been carried out in Europe since Oct. 7, with European intelligence and security agencies thwarting another 20 planned attacks. The threat of Islamist terrorism in Europe was recently highlighted when Austrian security arrested two teenagers who reportedly pledged alliance to Islamic State (IS) and planned a terror attack at a Taylor Swift concert in the Austrian capital.

TikTok’s extensive reach and algorithm have made it a preferred platform for recruiting young radicalized Muslim “lone wolves” to plan terror attacks in the West. Additionally, Telegram channels are utilized for coordinating attacks and connecting terrorist operatives across a virtual network.

The virtual recruitment of new terrorists and individual "lone wolf" terror suspects has posed a significant challenge for security agencies to identify threats in real time and prevent terror attacks, as opposed to those conducted by large terrorist organizations such as Al Qaida and Islamic State.

In December, a radicalized Muslim in his 20s carried out a terrorist attack in Paris, killing a German tourist and injuring two others. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne swiftly condemned the attack and pledged to intensify efforts to combat the terrorist threat. “We will not give in to terrorism. Never,” Borne wrote on 𝕏.

Islamist movements and global terrorism pose a significant threat to Western societies, particularly targeting Israel and Jewish communities, which are increasingly facing online antisemitism

Global terrorism and a rise in activity by the Islamist movements continue to pose a threat to Western societies. The State of Israel and Jewish communities have been increasingly targeted amid rising online antisemitism.

Jewish celebrities have criticized TikTok for enabling the mass spread of antisemitism online.

“What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Jewish British actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen argued in a November statement.

According to Ynet, the inadequate integration of Europe’s large and growing Muslim communities has led to the formation of parallel immigrant societies that are especially receptive to propaganda against Israel both online and through television networks like Al Jazeera, based in Qatar.

In March, a 50-year-old observant Jew was attacked by a young Islamist Muslim immigrant in Zurich, Switzerland who shouted, “Death to Jews.” The 15-year-old attacker, who hailed from Tunisia, identified with the Islamic State and threatened to attack Jews and synagogues.

In April, German authorities arrested two radicalized Muslim teenagers in Düsseldorf. They had planned to launch terror attacks at churches and police stations on behalf of the Islamist nation.

In June, Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunez warned that Islamist terrorism constituted a major security threat to the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.

"There is no clear-cut threat yet against the Games and our country but I’d like to remind you that at the end of May, two individuals were arrested in Saint-Etienne and were plotting a project aimed directly at the Olympic Games,” Nunez said.

Terrorism against the West and Jews is by no means limited to Europe. On Saturday, a young man stabbed a young Jewish man in Brooklyn, New York, near the Chabad headquarters, while shouting “Free Palestine.”