[Air-L] New report - Live-Streaming: Mapping Networks of Influence and (Dis)information Flow

[Tom Divon]

Dear community,

We are excited to share with you our report, “Live-Streaming: Mapping
Networks of Influence and (Dis)information Flow,” emerging from the 2025
Digital Methods Summer School research project on live-streaming.

https://www.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/SummerSchool2025LiveStreaming

Our report offers a deep dive into the infrastructure, cultures, and
governance dynamics shaping far-right live-streaming on TikTok. We have
found a bunch of troubling things, but (very) briefly, we see
radicalization increasingly operating through the ordinary on TikTok Live.
Streamers blend extremist messages into the rhythms of daily life (a bit of
weather talk, breakfast update, sunscreen recommendation), making ideology
feel casual and safe. Moderation is easily outmaneuvered; “6 million
cookies,” emojis, algospeak, and dog whistles allow harmful narratives to
circulate openly without triggering detection. At the same time, extremism
has become a revenue stream. TikTok Live’s gifting economy directly
finances extremist and AfD-adjacent streamers, while TikTok takes 50% of
every gift. Parasocial intimacy deepens the pull. Live Matches, gifting
rituals, and constant back-and-forth with audiences create emotional
pressure and closeness that quickly turns into political gravity. And
overarching all of this is a governance system where safety loses out to
profit. Under the DSA, TikTok rigorously enforces commercial violations,
yet violence, harassment, and extremist propaganda remain vastly
under-moderated, allowing this ecosystem to thrive in the gaps.

There is much more in the full report on TikTok Live as a propaganda
infrastructure built around an attention economy of hate. We are already
developing a paper that builds on these findings, drawing on the broader
dataset we are now systematically collecting. So, we’d be very happy to
connect with others working on similar questions around live-streaming,
propaganda, mis-dis, governance, platform cultures, or methodological
approaches. If you want to exchange ideas, please feel free to reach out,
and keep the conversation going!

Yours,
Pieter van Boheemen - Post-X Society
Marcus Bösch - University of Münster
Giulia Costanzo - Politecnico di Milano
Tom Divon - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Lea Frühwirth - CeMAS (Center für Monitoring, Analyse und Strategie)
Esther Hammelburg - Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
Jonathan Klüser - University of Zurich
Laura Postma - Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision
Edan Ring (remote) - Ben Gurion University of the Negev and ISOC-IL
Nina Steffen - University of Zurich
Xinlu Wang - Tsinghua University

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*Tom Divon*
Creators & Platforms R*esearcher*
Dept. of Communication & Journalism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sammy Ofer School of Communications, IDC, Herzliya
Tel: +972-547-532681
[image: Twitter] <https://twitter.com/TomDivon>[image: Instagram]
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Website: https://tomdivon.com/
Co-Founder: The Content Creator Scholars Network <https://www.ccsn.site/>
*Publications*:
>> Playful Activism: Memetic Performances of Palestinian Resistance in
TikTok #Challenges
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051231157607>
>> #JewishTikTok: The JewToks' Fight against Antisemitism
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359548581_JewishTikTok>
>> Serious TikTok: Can You Learn About the Holocaust in 60 Seconds?
<https://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/digitalholocaustmemory/2022/03/24/can-you-learn-about-the-holocaust-in-60-seconds-on-tiktok/>
>> Playful Trauma: TikTok Creators and the Use of the Platformed Body in
Times of War
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051241269281>
>> Platform gaslighting: A user-centric insight into social media corporate
communications of content moderation
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/29768624241303109>
>> The unsolicited algorithm: unveiling gendered harms and (non)consent in
apple iOS features
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09589236.2024.2433683?src=>
>> The sound of disinformation: TikTok, computational propaganda, and the
invasion of Ukraine
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448241251804?icid=int.sj-full-text.citing-articles.1>
>> Youthful Platform Commemoration: TikTok as a Frontier for Holocaust
Education and Memory
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383957738_Youthful_Platform_Commemoration_TikTok_as_a_Frontier_for_Holocaust_Education_and_Memory>