TERRORISMFrom TikTok to Terrorism? The Online Radicalization of European Lone Attackers since

By Nicolas Stockhammer

Abstract: The October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel marked a pivotal moment not only in Middle East security policy but also in the global Islamist and particularly jihadi propaganda landscape. This article examines how the ensuing digital “victimhood-revenge” narrative rapidly spread across platforms like TikTok, fueling a new wave of radicalization among adolescents in Europe. Drawing on six European case studies from 2023 to 2025—including foiled and executed attacks in Vienna, Solingen, and Zurich—this article identifies a recurring radicalization pattern involving emotionally vulnerable, digitally native individuals exposed to algorithm-driven Islamist content in social media, but predominantly on TikTok. The analysis conceptualizes this process through the lens of a “Virtual Caliphate Complex” and explores TikTok’s role as a low-threshold gateway into extremist ecosystems. By analyzing cross-platform mobilization dynamics, aesthetic framing, and the hybridization of lone-actor terrorism with online support networks, the article underscores the urgency of adapting P/CVE strategies to algorithmic environments. The conclusion suggests possible policy emphasis on content moderation, digital literacy, and platform accountability—particularly in the context of the European Union’s Digital Services Act legislation. The article contends that today’s prevailing Islamist radicalization pattern reflects not only ideological motivations but also youth-online-culture dynamics and algorithmic influence.

The October 7, 2023 attack against Israel marked a watershed moment not only in the escalation of violence in the Middle East but also in the global jihadi propaganda matrix.¹ Immediately, radical Islamist and jihadi propagandists launched a potent “victimhood-revenge” narrative that was rapidly disseminated across digital platforms.² Within hours of the initial attack and the subsequent Israeli counteroffensive, they began framing the events through the lens of victimhood, occupation, and defense of the umma.³ Social media platforms—especially TikTok, Telegram, Instagram, and X—were flooded with images and videos from Gaza, often faked or stripped of context and repackaged with emotionally charged slogans, Qur’anic references, and graphic calls for revenge.⁴ Hashtags such as #GazaUnderAttack, #FreePalestine, and #MuslimBrothersInGaza were co-opted by salafi-jihadi influencers to increase visibility among broader Muslim audiences, particularly adolescents. The framing of the war in Gaza as a Western-backed “genocidal” war against Islam served to intensify the perceived moral urgency of jihad, with many posts suggesting that passivity was equivalent to complicity.⁵ This message resonated strongly with disaffected or already ideologically primed individuals in the West, some of whom viewed the unfolding conflict as a personal call to action or, as Alexander Ritzmann coined it, a “tribal call to arms.^a