Elie Wiesel Institute: "The virtual environment has become one of hate”

The online environment has become one of hate between May 2024 and April 2025, according to the monitoring report prepared by the National Institute for Holocaust Studies of Romania "Elie Wiesel”, published yesterday, a document that shows that our country is facing an unprecedented resurgence of antisemitism, right-wing extremism and the trivialization of the Holocaust, against the backdrop of a tense electoral climate and an increasingly accentuated social polarization.

Experts from the Elie Wiesel Institute show that the parliamentary and presidential elections have fueled discriminatory, antisemitic and xenophobic discourses, and the public and virtual space have been flooded with symbols, messages and threats that revive the dark shadows of history. The cited report documents in detail this alarming reality, in which hate messages against Jews, Roma, the LGBTQ+ community or Hungarians have multiplied dramatically.

This resurgence of anti-Semitism had electoral effects: AUR became the second parliamentary force, and Călin Georgescu - a declared admirer of Ion Antonescu and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu - achieved significant results in the presidential elections, while other candidates with neo-legionary sympathies reached public positions. Among them are Diana Şoşoacă, Ciprian Ciubuc or Miron Manega.

The cited document states that anti-Semitic discourse has spread aggressively in the online environment, according to a study conducted by Călin Ştefan Georgia, who analyzed 57,230 posts on Facebook, Telegram, X, TikTok, Instagram and media sites. The most common themes of these posts are: Holocaust denial, the myth of Jewish control over Romania, the global Jewish conspiracy, and the accusation of undermining national values. These narratives peaked in the pre-election period and were amplified by fake accounts, extremist influencers, and ideological propaganda channels.

The report notes that "the virtual environment has become one of hate,” and platforms like TikTok have hosted dozens of accounts with names associated with the Iron Guard or Zelea Codreanu. Journalists Luiza Vasiliu and Victor Ilie identified no fewer than 167 such accounts in April 2025. In parallel, the study "Soros ad portas!” published by ActiveWatch demonstrates that anti-Semitic rhetoric is closely linked to anti-Soros messages, where "the image of the Sorosist is shaped by an abundance of insults, conspiracy theories, and accusations rarely accompanied by evidence.”

Regarding the Telegram channel, the cited document states: "Although it is by no means the most popular social network for the Romanian-speaking public, Telegram represents the environment in which hate groups and communities organize, systematically elaborate and distribute their harmful narratives. The report includes an empirical analysis of the evolution of 75 public Telegram channels monitored for their content that promotes narratives with an anti-Semitic, denialist substratum or that promote legionnaires or war criminals. For 50 of these, the number of users increased during the analyzed period by an average of 1 new user per day, while 23 channels lost followers or were closed.” The Elie Wiesel Institute emphasizes that globally Romania remains one of the Eastern European countries with a high level of anti-Semitism. According to the ADL Global 100 study, almost 2 out of 3 Romanians believe that a small group of people control the world, and 1 out of 5 Romanians believe that the Holocaust has been historically distorted. Four out of five Romanians believe that Jews talk too much about what happened to them during the Holocaust. Such a climate becomes fertile ground for radicalization and incitement to hatred, say experts from the Elie Wiesel Institute.

The cases documented in the report are of extreme gravity. In February 2025, a man was convicted for threatening a restaurant employee by saying: "Look what I have with Jews!”, showing a tattooed swastika, and adding: "If you were Jewish, I would have blown your brains out.” Another negative example is Marian Motocu, an extremist activist, who posted videos in which he says: "Considering the statements of Alexandru Florian (ed. - the general director of the Elie Wiesel Institute), that guy should be put against a wall and shot with rubber bullets until he dies.” Such messages were massively distributed on TikTok, Facebook or VKontakte, attracting tens of thousands of reactions.

The report also shows that extremism does not remain only at the level of discourse. The document states that 18 graves in the Bacău Jewish Cemetery were vandalized in March 2025 with swastikas, the Celtic cross and the number "88", symbols directly associated with Nazism. According to a press investigation, the perpetrators are members of a neo-Nazi group called Unit 731, which recruits young people via Telegram, promising points for racist "heroic acts”. In Arad, two minors vandalized the Jewish cemetery, later posting videos of the desecration of graves. In Bucharest, a synagogue was marked with legionary symbols by a Noua Dreaptă activist, who was sent to court in March 2025. In public spaces, stickers, graffiti and billboards with anti-Semitic messages or images of legionary leaders have become increasingly common. On the M1 line of the Bucharest metro, the message: "Death to the Jews. Heil Hitler” was discovered, and a picture of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was circulating on a tram. Messages such as "14/88” or "Faţa la duşman” - inspired by neo-Nazi slogans - were detected in several locations in the capital. On the walls of Cluj-Napoca or on Splaiul Unirii in Bucharest, inscriptions such as "Down with the Jews" or "HITLER" have appeared, while the busts of Petre Ţuţea or the signs of the Iron Guard are being tacitly rehabilitated by the silence of the authorities, say the specialists of the Elie Wiesel Institute.

They conclude by stating that the state institutions, although aware of the seriousness of the phenomenon, are moving slowly, postponing the taking of firm decisions, a procrastination that, at some point, can be seen as a form of moral complicity.