TikTok & The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

NICK JORDAN
3 min readMar 19, 2023

How an antique forgery continues to spread its lies

Image: US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Flicking idly through the dancing girls and daft comic set pieces of TikTok the other day, I was surprised to find myself suddenly embroiled in a ‘debate’ (I use the term lightly) about the vicious and ongoing nature of historical anti-semitism and the key role played therein by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A forged and profoundly racist text, emanating from Russia in the early 20th century, The Protocols fraudulently presents a sinister, worldwide Jewish plot to control global finances and culture, as if it were a real thing, rather than the grotesque racist fabrication that it actually is.

Eagerly read and believed by the likes of Adolf Hitler, The Protocols is one of the most dangerously influential pieces of hate propaganda ever produced. TikTok however, has many avenues and corners, down one of which I found a young historian outlining the history of The Protocols and clearly explaining how dangerous a text it is, and how its lies continue to influence anti-semitic thought and action today, threatening and endangering Jewish people everywhere.

Stepping mistakenly into the comments section, I found myself in a brief rhetorical tussle with user ‘Ak’ who had this to say about this repellent forgery: ‘Yeah but everything it said has come true.’ Pointing out…

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