Tiktok trends come and go so fast these days, but there are some pretty awful ones that shouldn’t even trend in the first place.
A trend on the Chinese-owned social video platform where people portray themselves as victims of the Holocaust was recently criticized by none other than the management of Auschwitz Memorial itself for being ‘hurtful and offensive.’
In a Twitter post, the museum released a statement responding to this trend where users are seen wearing striped uniforms similar to prisoners of concentration camps or armbands like those that were forced on Jews under Nazi rule.
The 'victims' trend on TikTok can be hurtful & offensive. Some videos are dangerously close or already beyond the border of trivialization of history.
But we should discuss this not to shame & attack young people whose motivation seem very diverse. It's an educational challenge. pic.twitter.com/CB4Ve2uRUK
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) August 26, 2020
“The trend visible on Tiktok can be indeed hurtful and even considered offensive. Some of the examples online are dangerously close or are already beyond the border of trivialization of history and being disrespectful to the victims. Some were not created to commemorate anyone, but to become part of an online trend,” the statement notes.
The statement further connotes that there is a need to continuously raise awareness, particularly on social media, on how to properly commemorate the Holocaust: “It always demands respect towards the victims, proper language and context, as well as factual accuracy. Educators should work with young people to present the facts and stories but also teach and discuss how to commemorate in a meaningful and respectful way.”
Auschwitz Memorial ends its statement with a criticism of social media platforms in general.
“In social media, there are far more outrageous issues, like algorithms promoting antisemitism or the presence of Holocaust denial that is a dangerous and hideous carrier of antisemitism and hatred. Social media platforms sadly allow denial content to remain on their platforms.”
While the social media video app has yet to address this accusation, Tiktok US’ Head of Safety Eric Han did make a blog post last August 21 which addresses the issue of hate on the platform.
In the post, Han enumerated several ways by which Tiktok counters the spread of hate, and even shared that they were able to remove more 380,000 videos in the US for violating their hate speech policy, banned over 1,300 accounts for hateful content or behavior, and removed more than 64,000 hateful comments.
“To be clear, these numbers don’t reflect a 100% success rate in catching every piece of hateful content or behavior, but they do indicate our commitment to action,” Han says in the post.
To date, videos following this ‘victims’ trend on Tiktok are no longer visible on the app’s For You page, and also if you check out the #holocaust hashtag. Let’s all hope this won’t trend ever again.