Open letter: Consistent Action Against AI-generated Holocaust Distortions on Social Media Platforms
In recent months, social media networks have seen a surge in content that relates to National Socialism created using artificial intelligence (AI). This content does not accurately depict historical events; rather, it is entirely fabricated. This content, colloquially referred to as AI slop, shows supposed situations in Nazi concentration camps or during their liberation. These paint an extremely distorted and false picture. For example, AI-generated images are circulating that show an alleged reunion between prisoners and liberators, or fictional scenes of crying children behind barbed wire. Artificial intelligence is used here to create content made up of fragments of historical facts and emotionalized fiction.
There are different motives behind this content. On the one hand, so-called "content farms" use the emotional impact of the Holocaust to achieve maximum reach with minimal effort. This is a business model based on clicks and advertising revenue. On the other hand, this content is used specifically to dilute historical facts, shift victim and perpetrator roles, or spread revisionist narratives. The platforms' algorithms favor emotionally charged content, regardless of its truthfulness.
As institutions of historical and political education, we observe this development with great concern. AI-generated content distorts history by minimising and trivialising it. It changes the viewing habits of users, who increasingly question even authentic historical documents. Each of these posts devalues the work and undermines the credibility of memorial sites, archives, museums and research institutions.
We are committed to a digital public sphere in which survivors of Nazi persecution and their descendants are protected from having their life stories exploited by strangers for profit. Historical sources and scientific research must not be supplanted by mass AI-generated content. We want real voices and diverse perspectives to be heard.
We are not opposed to digital forms of remembrance and communication. Artificial intelligence can also be used effectively in historical and political education. However, the challenge for society as a whole is to develop ethical and historically responsible standards for this technology. Platform operators have a particular responsibility in this regard. They must ensure that the suffering of victims is not trivialized by emotionalized fiction.
We call on platform operators to:
- Proactively combat AI content that distorts history. Not only in response to user reports.
- Make content that distorts history reportable as misinformation via internal reporting systems.
- Exclude accounts that disseminate such content from all monetization programs.
- Label AI-generated content, without exception, and remove it from the platform if the labeling requirement is violated.
- Work with memorial sites, archives, and experts to improve detection systems for Holocaust-related misinformation.
A list of all the first signatory institutions can be found on the website of the Memorial Forum and on the website of the Hamburg Memorials and Learning Sites Foundation.