P003 - Alt-right Pipeline: Responses and mobilizations from TikTok users

• In Event: Poster Session & Ice Cream Social

Abstract

This poster presents the interaction between users and the TikTok platform's algorithm. The focus will be in part on the Alt-right pipeline phenomenon, which corresponds to the idea that viewing political content such as anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ+, Islamophobic, racist ideas, etc., leads progressively and increasingly to the exposure of Alt-right content. This phenomenon, already observed on YouTube, is also reproduced exponentially on TikTok. That said, the focus will not be on videos with Alt-right connotations, but on those of "anti-alt-right" users who mobilize on TikTok. This form of vigilantism will be presented and treated from a socio-technical angle, thanks to a semiotic analysis of the visual content (around thirty videos). This approach will enable us to understand the transformations arising from the interplay between users, digital platforms, and their algorithms and thus to better understand the new communicative practices of contemporary activism. The aim of this poster is to show how interactions between users and digital platforms contribute to the creation of an oppositional discourse, in this case anti-Alt-Right pipeline vigilantism.

Authors

• François Gillardin, Université de Montréal

• Samuel Tanner, Université de Montréal