From Nazi-Hunting to Extremist-Flagging: Inside the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Work with Tech Against Terrorism

How the Center's Research Department—and a team of young Austrian interns—helped remove verified terrorist content from the world's largest online platforms.

Nearly fifty years ago, the Simon Wiesenthal Center took its name from a man who understood a simple, powerful idea: that meticulous documentation is a weapon against hate. Simon Wiesenthal spent his life building case files—gathering evidence, recording names, and refusing to let atrocities disappear into silence—so that the people responsible could be identified and held to account.

Today, that same determination to record and document hate has moved online. And over the past year, a small team of interns in the Center's Research Department has been quietly applying it to one of the most urgent problems of the digital age: the spread of terrorist content across the platforms billions of people use every day.

What is Tech Against Terrorism?

Tech Against Terrorism (TAT) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that works with the technology industry—global social media companies, messaging apps, and even gaming platforms—to disrupt terrorist and violent extremist use of the internet. Launched by the United Nations in 2016 and supported by the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate along with the governments of the United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, and Canada; TAT combines threat intelligence, technical innovation, and policy expertise to help platforms respond to terrorist content while upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Its work includes maintaining the largest verified database of terrorist content in the world. When violative material is detected on a member platform, TAT sends that platform a specialized alert so the content can be reviewed and removed.

In September 2025, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's relationship with Tech Against Terrorism deepened into a special project: the Center's interns—including a cohort from our Austrian internship program—were onboarded directly into TAT's infrastructure and given an exclusive role as trusted flaggers.

What does a "trusted flagger" actually do?

A trusted flagger is an individual or organization whose reports platforms take seriously because their track record has earned that trust. Rather than an ordinary user reporting a post and hoping it gets seen, a trusted flagger's submissions are routed through a channel built for accuracy and speed.

For the Center's interns, the day-to-day work was patient and precise. Through daily monitoring of online platforms, they identified content that promoted, was disseminated by, or represented a designated terrorist entity—the strict standard TAT uses to define "violative" material. Each piece was documented and submitted. It is careful work, and it is exactly the kind of evidence-gathering that has defined this Center from the beginning.

What the data revealed

Between October 2025 and May 2026, the interns' monitoring activity increased steadily, producing a clear and revealing picture of where terrorist content lives online and who is behind it.

The groups.

The overwhelming majority of the interns' reports were connected to violent Islamist organizations. Content linked to Hamas and its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, accounted for 85 reports, by far the largest category. Hezbollah was the second most frequently identified group with 22 reports, followed by Ansarallah (also known as the Houthis) with 20 reports, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad with 12. Content connected to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, was identified as well, appearing in 3 reports—a reminder that the threat of online extremism does not belong to any single ideology.

The platforms.

The content clustered heavily on a small number of sites. Telegram stood out dramatically as the single largest source, accounting for 106 of the interns' submissions. X was a distant second with 35, and only one piece of flagged content was found on YouTube. In the interns' work, Telegram was overwhelmingly the platform of greatest concern.

The outcome.

Working through Tech Against Terrorism, the interns contributed to the removal of terrorist material from X, Telegram, Instagram, and other social platforms. Roughly 60% of the material they submitted was ultimately removed.

That 60% does not represent a ceiling on what was harmful. It reflects TAT's deliberately strict standard for what qualifies as violative. A great deal of additional disturbing material exists on these platforms that falls outside that narrow, rigorously defined threshold. What the number represents is verified, confirmed terrorist content taken offline—a real and measurable contribution to a safer global digital sphere.

Why this work matters

This is about more than just statistics. Behind each report is a piece of propaganda, recruitment material, or incitement that a terrorist organization placed online to reach an audience—and that is now gone.

This is where the Center's history and its future meet. Simon Wiesenthal, hunting Nazis in the years following the Second World War, never had the tools to reach across a network in real time; he worked with paper files, testimony, and relentless persistence. But the principle he modeled—that you fight hatred by refusing to look away—translates directly to the work these interns are doing on a screen today. Combating online antisemitism and terrorism is one of the core commitments of the Center's Research Department, and this project is that commitment in its most contemporary form.

For the interns, the experience was formative. As one wrote to the leadership of Tech Against Terrorism:

"Working with the platform and being able to support your work has been a very valuable experience for me. I learned a lot about monitoring, documenting, and analyzing extremist content online, and I truly appreciate the trust you gave us by giving us access to these tools."

Removing verified terrorist content from the platforms the world relies on was one of the most gratifying tasks the interns performed during their time with the Center. It is proof that continuous monitoring and close cooperation with technology platforms works—and that the fight Simon Wiesenthal began with a filing cabinet is being carried forward by a new generation, with new tools, toward the same enduring goal.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Tech Against Terrorism? Tech Against Terrorism is an independent, not-for-profit organization launched by the United Nations in 2016 to counter terrorist use of the internet. It partners with technology companies—including social media, messaging, and gaming platforms—and is supported by the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate. It maintains the world's largest verified database of terrorist content and alerts member platforms when violative material is detected so it can be removed.

What is the Simon Wiesenthal Center's role in Tech Against Terrorism? The Center's Research Department has worked with Tech Against Terrorism for more than four years. Since September 2025, its interns have served as trusted flaggers, monitoring platforms daily and submitting verified terrorist content for removal.

What is a trusted flagger? A trusted flagger is an individual or organization whose reports of harmful online content are prioritized by platforms because their accuracy and track record have earned that trust.

How effective was the Center's flagging work? Between October 2025 and May 2026, roughly 60% of the material the Center's interns submitted through Tech Against Terrorism was removed from platforms including X, Telegram, and Instagram—a figure limited by TAT's deliberately strict definition of violative content.

Which platform hosted the most terrorist content? In the Center interns' work, Telegram was by far the most-reported platform, accounting for 106 of their submissions, compared with 35 on X and just one on YouTube.