BuzzFeed News documented hundreds of uses of anti-Semitic or otherwise pro-Nazi stickers used in WhatsApp groups, despite those images being illegal in Germany.

By Karsten Schmehl

German WhatsApp users are spreading far-right propaganda through the use of stickers and chain letters but the company is doing little to nothing to stop it, despite local laws forbidding the use of Nazi imagery.

In nine WhatsApp groups that BuzzFeed News has observed since October, tens of thousands of messages have been sent among its far-right participants. Among them have been symbols glorifying the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler, deeply anti-Semitic images created using WhatsApp’s “sticker” function, and messages seeking to incite violence and threats against leftists or refugees.

The groups have names like “The German Storm” and “Ku Klux Klan International.” At times, between 90 and 250 people have been members of the groups, close to the maximum size allowed by WhatsApp.

In October of last year, WhatsApp introduced the so-called sticker function in Germany, which lets users choose from pre-made images to attach to their chats with the option to make their own. The Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism, a Berlin-based advocacy group, quickly drew attention to the surge in Nazi-themed stickers. “As soon as WhatsApp made it possible to create and use stickers, right-wing extremists flood their group chats with Nazi symbolism,” the group wrote in October, asking the platform how this could be prevented in the future.

“These anti-Semitic stickers are unacceptable and we do not want them on WhatsApp,” a WhatsApp spokesperson wrote in an email to BuzzFeed News last November. “We strongly condemn this hate. If a user receives a sticker with illegal content, we ask them to report it to WhatsApp.”

But when BuzzFeed News followed up this month to ask WhatsApp how many reports of possibly illegal content they’ve received since then, the company declined to respond to specific questions.

“As a messaging service, we do not have access to private messages shared by users,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an emailed statement. “We encourage people to report issues to WhatsApp to ensure the security of our platform.”

WhatsApp, a company owned by Facebook since 2014, has struggled with how to contain the disinformation and racism spread on its platform in recent years. It’s an especially trenchant problem in Germany, where in the aftermath of World War II the state has passed strict laws against the use or spread of Nazi imagery, slogans, and propaganda.

The chain letters passed around the groups — which can be joined via invitation — aren’t exactly subtle. One letter, shared in several WhatsApp groups within the last several months, opens with the words: “You have been Hitlered. Hitler at least 5 more people or in 88 days a money-hungry Jew will steal all your money and rape you.”

“Send this message to everyone you know and contribute to Operation White Christmas,” it continued, followed by a huge swastika, an image of Adolf Hitler, and the sentence “Run Ali run.”

“For every person who forwards this message, an immigrant is sent to his home country,” the letter ends.

In one of the WhatsApp groups — which had more than 200 members — where the letter was shared, many of the members immediately responded with laughter and one of these emojis: 🙋. For the participants, it is a digital way to send along a Nazi salute.