Live-Streaming: Mapping Networks of Influence and (Dis)information Flow

This study explores how TikTok Live’s fusion of immediacy, interactivity, and monetization creates a powerful infrastructure for political communication, one increasingly exploited for extremist mobilisation and disinformation. Focusing on far-right actors in Germany, it combines technical monitoring, content analysis, and policy review to examine how extremist networks exploit the platform’s live-streaming affordances to spread propaganda, monetize hate, and evade moderation, often in ways that outpace both TikTok’s self-regulation and external oversight under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).