Kids are just "three clicks away" from hate groups on social media, CBS News New York investigation finds
NEW YORK — Hate groups are not only promoting that content on popular social media sites, but a CBS News New York investigation shows they're actively trying to recruit kids into their ideology.
Extremist groups found on popular social media apps
On an encrypted messaging app called Signal, investigative reporter Tim McNicholas found a chatroom for a self-described militia where members openly disparage Black people and express a desire to "kill every single Jew."
Anonymously, they type racial slurs, glorify Nazis and share advice on weapon-making.
McNicholas first found the group on a much more public and popular app – TikTok, where a page under the group's name with 1,200 followers suggested attacking synagogues and mosques, and linked to that Signal chat.
One person in the chat writes "be respectful to the youth" in the group and calls them "the next generation of soldiers."
McNicholas found another page of the same name on X, which also linked to the Signal chat and had been sharing violent, antisemitic content for weeks.
CBS News New York has learned hate groups use code words and emojis to mask terms that might otherwise alert moderation tools. Whoever made the militia pages, for example, used a juice emoji instead of the word Jews, and repeatedly shared the acronym "TJD" or the phrase "Total Joyous Day," which other social media users describe as a dog whistle.
"Just know that the T and the D mean total and death. And then the middle is whatever slur or name of a marginalized group they can think of," one TikTok user explained in a video.
When CBS News New York reported the pages to TikTok and X, they were quickly removed, but the Signal chat remained, as did other pages we found promoting hate and white supremacist propaganda.
X, TikTok and Signal would not agree to interviews with CBS News New York, but TikTok said in an email it proactively removes hateful videos, often before users flag them.
CBS News New York reached out to Signal multiple times but never heard back. Their website says they do not control and are not responsible for how or when people use their services.
Law enforcement seeing "younger and younger threat actors"
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner says police are keeping a close watch on extremist chat rooms.
"It's not at all a surprise. We've seen this for many years. We've seen this for decades across different kinds of forums. But certainly with encrypted means of communicating," Weiner said.
"You're no longer six degrees of separation, you're like three clicks away from hate," said Oren Segal, who tracks and maps threats and white supremacist propaganda for the Anti-Defamation League.
He added, "I think for most people to hear that there are groups that are on the social media that their kids are using that are advocating to kill Jews or others would be surprising."
"This has been a real challenge for us as law enforcement around the world, here in the city – the younger and younger threat actors that we're seeing. And that's online and that's, again, offline," Weiner said.
A recent report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found pro-Nazi content is picking up tens of millions of views on TikTok.
"Social media companies absolutely need to do more to combat the exploitation of their platforms by these hate groups," Segal said.
Segal added, "One of the concerns that we have is not giving oxygen to those groups who thrive off of the attention that they're trying to get."
For that reason, CBS News New York has decided to not name that group.
How should parents talk to kids about dangerous online content?
Author Joanna Schroeder has written books on parenting and columns about her sons encountering antisemitic social media posts back in 2019.
"Nobody really believed me. People were like, 'Oh, you think that memes are indoctrinating kids?' And I was like, 'Yeah, I really think they are.' And we've just seen more and more evidence of it," she said.
"How should a parent handle a situation like that? Because this is a reality, right? It's here, and kids are going to come across content like that," McNicholas asked.
"We want to have these conversations often, just little, little bites at a time. You know, bring it up. Bring up something you saw online that troubled you, bring up something you saw online that was kind of tricky," Schroeder said.
Police encourage people to report anything suspicious they see to 1-888–NYC-SAFE.
