According to a recent report from a media watchdog, a string of TikToks that use AI to translate Adolf Hitler’s speeches into English have gone viral, with one hitting a million views on the social media site.
The report comes from Media Matters, which shared that one clip made it to more than 1 million views before it was taken down by the social media company.
The disturbing trend has seen some users praise and celebrate the Nazi leader’s remarks. However, TikTok has worked to take down any videos relating to Hitler as they go against the platform’s guidelines, which ban “promoting (including any praise, celebration, or sharing of manifesto) or providing material support to … individuals who cause serial or mass violence, or promote hateful ideologies.”
The video that hit 1 million views before being taken down featured Hitler giving a speech with a slow instrumental beat. The caption on the video says, “Just listen,” and appears to try to show the Nazy dictator who was responsible for the deaths of nearly 6 million European Jews.
Another report from Sky News found several other instances where TikTok posts featured speeches from Hitler, as well as his minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.
One video from early September included an image from the Nuremberg Rally and had more than 56,000 likes. A comment on the video said, “Modern society absolutely needs him,” Sky News reported.
Media Matters shared in its report that there have been several Nazi-themed videos popped up on the app, including one that showed a shoreline with cliffs while one of the speeches played. That video reportedly had more than 22,000 likes before it was taken down and comments that said things like “AH was a good and kind man” and “this changed my views on him.”
The New York Post received a statement on the growing trend from a TikTok spokesperson who said the platform has already “removed almost all of the videos identified in the Media Matters report for violating our community guidelines.”
“Along with more than 1,300 pieces of related content that we removed proactively; and removed the remaining others today,” the spokesperson continued. “We take a zero-tolerance approach to hateful content on our platform, and consistently remove more than 90 percent of it before it is reported to us.”
While speaking with Sky News, a spokesperson for the company said their staff is trained to remove content like what was found in the report.
“We regularly train our safety professionals and update our safeguards to detect hateful behavior on an ongoing basis, and we remove 91% of this type of content before it is reported to us,” the spokesperson said.