This article is the English version of the Spanish and Italian original ones published by Maldita and Facta on October 9th 2025
MADRID / MILAN – In a disturbing trend dubbed “pop fascism”, Franco, Mussolini and Hitler are resurfacing on TikTok and beyond as memes, chants and emojis. A cross-border investigation by Maldita.es (Spain) and Facta (Italy) shows that the idolisation of dictators and the spread of disinformation are becoming embedded in everyday digital culture.
This investigation has been possible thanks to the support of Journalismfund Europe. All the articles in Italian, Spanish and English can be read here: https://www.journalismfund.eu/pop-fascism
Franco appears wearing bright pink sunglasses and Mussolini waves from a balcony while Adele’s Someone Like You plays in the background. On TikTok, a video showing bees being gassed on a streetlamp with the hashtag #extermination, uses Erika March, a song linked to Nazism for its use in military ceremonies of the Third Reich. On the platform, more than 24,500 videos use the same soundtrack. That is the first stage: the normalisation of fascism through pop culture. Memes, fascist speeches, military marches…
At the same time, disinformation circulates about housing, dams, the Spanish and Italian Social Security system and other false achievements attributed to Franco and Mussolini. On Telegram, dozens of channels deny the Holocaust or manipulate victim numbers, while users can download books with a single click that deny the existence of gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps. The goal is to normalise acceptance, driven by conspiracy theories and disinformation.
The celebration of Franco Fridays on X (formerly Twitter), Führer Days or Fascist Saturdays instituted by Mussolini in 1935, and the use of Blas Piñar and Primo de Rivera speeches in TikTok videos all contribute to the idolisation of these figures. And all of this content has already spread across social media with varying degrees of coordination and behavior depending on the platform. It’s ‘pop fascism,’ and it seeps into our daily lives through multiple elements of contemporary culture.
From military marches to Cara al Sol and M come Mussolini: the soundtrack of ‘Pop Fascism’ on social media
The soundtrack of pop fascism on social media spans all genres and has managed to adapt to current trends and technological advances. There’s even room for less current, but no less mainstream, musical trends. Particularly common are posts using songs directly linked to Francoism, among which disinformation creeps in. A prime example is the wave of manipulated videos circulating on social networks that appear to show famous artists performing a modern version of Cara al Sol, the anthem of the Spanish Falange composed in 1935 and adopted in 1937 as the “national song” of Franco’s regime. We have identified altered videos of performances by Spanish singers Aitana or Quevedo, and the DJ David Guetta.
Even soccer players’ images have been used, such as in a manipulated video of French-Spanish soccer player Le Normand playing Cara al Sol on the piano. Fake videos that become disinformation. “By using their images, songs, or public appearances linked to an emblematic anthem for Francoism and Falangism, such as Cara al Sol, they aim to introduce them to the youth circles that follow them and normalize the anthem as just another song in their repertoire,” explains Matilde Eiroa, senior academic at the Carlos III University of Madrid and author of the book Franco, from hero to comic figure of contemporary culture.
The normalisation of this music has also moved offline. On 5 October 2024, a mega-concert took place near Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha, Spain) with the participation of several international RAC (Rock Against Communism) music groups, a movement linked to neo-Nazi ideology that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. In September 2024, the Italian group Veneto Fronte Skinheads held a Nazi rock concert in Verona to commemorate Ian Stuart Donaldson, founder of the English neo-Nazi network Blood and Honour. Even Italy’s most well-known far-right movement, CasaPound, has its own reference band: ZetaZeroAlfa, founded by CasaPound leader Gianluca Iannone in the late 1990s.
RAC music is present on major online streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc.) as well as on social media. Hundreds of Spanish-language content uses audio from a 2001 song called División Azul by Toletum, a group from that Spanish-language movement. A TikTok audio clip of that song has been used in more than 1,700 videos that remain available on the platform. On Spotify, Toletum has more than 27,000 monthly listeners. These songs often accompany images of Franco or Primo de Rivera, among others.
In Italy, popular songs like Adele’s Someone Like You or viral hits such as Mine by Bazzi are used to soundtrack images and videos of Mussolini, for example, while he delivers speeches in Rome’s Piazza Venezia. The images appear with phrases like “I wish nothing but the best for you, too,” propagating an altered, harmless, and even desirable image of Il Duce.
On TikTok and YouTube, users can find AI-generated videos of an animated Mussolini avatar dancing on stage, in school hallways, and on a basketball court, often set to catchy original songs praising the Duce. The lyrics of one of these songs, for example, go: “M like Mussolini / everyone likes me / mothers and children.”
From Primo de Rivera’s speeches to fascist saturdays: how these figures are glorified through multiple strategies, including disinformation
‘Pop Fascism’ goes beyond music. The content also uses fragments of speeches, with two main protagonists: José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, and Blas Piñar, a politician and jurist who served as president of the far-right party Fuerza Nueva during Spain’s transition to democracy. Audio (and, less frequently, video) clips of their public interventions are used to exalt their image, idolise them, or defend their political ideals.
In 2024, the organisation Media Matters for America warned that AI-generated audios of Hitler’s speeches in English were circulating on TikTok, racking up millions of views. For the professor Matilde Eiroa, this type of content focuses on “superficial aspects such as military aesthetics” or “logos with aggressive colors” (such as red and black, the Falange’s signature colors and also used on the Nazi flag) that glorify “fascist or National Socialist aesthetics and become elements of a digital subculture.”
To this end, these actors also spread disinformation narratives and content that praise the supposed achievements of these dictators through various techniques. In Spain, for example, through content that compares Franco’s regime with current events on issues such as housing or the construction of reservoirs, disinformation that has gone viral in recent months. Occasionally, through seemingly spontaneous interviews with people on the street, where participants end up saying things as “We lived better under Franco,” trying to legitimise the narrative.
Other ways to praise these dictators is by dedicating a day a week to them. Mussolini’s regime established “Fascist Saturdays” in 1935, which formally ceased to exist in July 1943, when the Duce regime fell. However, some users have continued to revive this fascist tradition on social media, 90 years after its implementation.
This isn’t the only day on which a dictator is praised on social media. On Fridays, social media users celebrate both Hitler and Franco. For the German dictator, the term Führer Friday is used, referring to the title Hitler adopted in 1934 after abolishing the presidency.
In parallel, there is also a space for Franco Fridays, whose origin on social media is unknown (the first posts we have located on X are from 2021). Jack Posobiec, who has previously spread conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate, also actively promotes Franco Fridays on X. His first mention of Franco Friday on his official X account dates to 29 December 2023. Since then, he has published dozens of posts referencing the term, each garnering thousands of views. He even shared an AI-generated song titled Uncle Frank, whose lyrics include: “A long time ago, Spain was in trouble, but then a man named Uncle Franco appeared. He was brave and bold” or “Uncle Franco beat the hell out of the reds.”
Franco in pink glasses, Hitler playing football or Mussolini dancing: how fascist propaganda has adapted its language to digital platforms
Franco reimagined as a green frog, Pepe the Frog, a harmless character from the comic strip Boy’s Club created by Matt Furie, that later became a hate symbol; Mussolini and Franco dancing or Hitler mimicking Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal celebration. Images have a greater emotional impact than written text, and those who use them are aware of this.
Memes have become a crucial weapon in disinformation and manipulation campaigns, according to a study by the National Defense University Press, due to their ability to go viral easily, even among highly educated audiences (in fact, academic evidence has shown that the public is unlikely to immediately identify the origin and purpose of this far-right content).
Key Allen, PhD in International Relations, researcher at the University of Oxford, and author of numerous articles on extremism and social media, asserts that memes can reach young groups and “convince them of a revisionist historical narrative,” such as, for example, that during Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship in Italy, rail services were punctual. “Neo-fascist groups have always adapted to the prevailing technologies of the time, so it’s natural that they are now moving towards social media,” says Allen. They have thus reconfigured their strategies by adding new elements to their discourse. That is the case of memes: images or videos containing a block of text that can be easily shared on social media.
With this type of content, which makes communication more visual and less radical, the groups that promote it are trying to become more mainstream, more pop. In fact, a research article published in 2019 states that the spread of far-right ideology on the internet is closely linked to memes, which are capable of achieving wide dissemination and reach. In the long term, they can lead to an acclimatisation to extremist content, alongside the normalisation of radical statements.
Italian journalist and expert in politics and conspiracy theories Leonardo Bianchi explains to Facta that “irony is a crucial tool in today’s far-right propaganda because it allows for plausible deniability: racist, anti-Semitic, or extremist things are said (or written), but at the same time the person denies having done so by hiding behind the screen of a joke.”
Football players and cartoons: ‘Pop Fascism’ in everyday life
Football is another sphere where dictators are glorified, often by exploiting current events, signings or viral moments. The names and faces of players are used as pretexts to talk about Franco, Hitler or Mussolini. The most notable recent example in Spain involves Franco Mastantuono, an 18-year-old Argentine footballer who signed with Real Madrid during the 2025 summer transfer window. Before the deal was officially confirmed, speculation about his future spread across social media, accompanied by dozens of posts ‘jokingly’ referencing Francisco Franco and the Francoist dictatorship, capitalising on the coincidence of names.
Some users fantasised about the crowd at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium (the home ground of the Madrid team) chanting Franco’s name; others debated what his shirt would say or whether he would wear the number 39 (the year the Spanish Civil War ended); still others made puns about his position on the field, right winger.
This trend has also appeared with other players, such as Angelo Stiller, a German footballer who features in social media content for his supposed resemblance to Hitler. Another example is Romano Benito Floriani Mussolini, an Italian player and great-grandson of the dictator Benito Mussolini. He previously played for Lazio, a club whose ultras have displayed banners glorifying fascism. Although Floriani Mussolini has publicly stated that he wants to keep his second surname, at his current team, Cremonese, where he is on loan, his shirt simply reads Romano. In December 2024, a video circulated on social media showing Lazio fans celebrating a goal with the fascist salute.
Between late August and early September 2025, coinciding with the start of the Serie A season and Floriani’s debut, memes proliferated on X. They portrayed him as the ideal heir to the family tradition, accompanied by fascist slogans such as “Vincere e vinceremo” (“We shall win and conquer”), the war cry used by Mussolini when announcing Italy’s entry into the Second World War.
Cross-Platform, and sometimes coordinated, networks: how and where this content spreads
These contents circulate across multiple platforms, adapting to the specific logic and user behaviour of each one. On TikTok, for example, there is an abundance of videos featuring background music such as Cara al Sol or speeches by Primo de Rivera, among others, often paired with still photos or montages. On X, however, more content is published in the form of memes or references to Franco Friday. This also has to do with the users who disseminate it.
On Telegram and X, mainly, Maldita.es has identified more than 70 groups and channels aimed at a Spanish-speaking audience, which regularly share this content. For expert Kye Allen, “when we look at this type of discourse on TikTok, Instagram and the like,” coordination, in his experience, “is much more fragmented.” Often, he says, “these are individuals with their own accounts who move content” of this type, without needing to coordinate with others. However, he adds, “there is a certain degree of coordination: ideas are always learned and adopted among certain individuals and groups.” For the expert, this manifests itself in various ways: on an aesthetic level, by copying similar styles or through certain genres of content. “A popular genre today is the so-called ‘savior genre’,” a genre that includes “Save Europe” memes and conspiracy theories about the Great Replacement or the Kalergi Plan.
In Italy, Facta identified a particularly striking case in 2021: a network known as the Mattonisti (“bricklayers”) on X, a group of several hundred Italian accounts coordinated with each other. Behind these accounts, Facta explains, lies an organised Telegram channel where users coordinate which hashtags to push into trending topics, using current events to amplify reactionary content and normalise fascist and Nazi symbols. Their hallmark is the use of Wojak, a crudely drawn meme character used as a mask to represent negative emotions such as sadness and melancholy. In the Mattonisti ecosystem, Wojak becomes Mussolini or Hitler, transforming historical figures into pop icons with powerful visual appeal.
Young Spaniards’ and Italians’ growing preference for authoritarian regimes
According to the professor Matilde Eiroa, these narratives, their aesthetics and their spread on platforms act as vehicles “of propaganda aimed at recruiting young people,” while also serving to “diffuse their ideology.” In this way, they manage to “glorify the figures of these three leaders: recognisable icons that allow them to connect easily with that audience and help recruit new adherents.”
In Spain, data from several Center for Sociological Research (CIS) surveys, focusing on the question about “preferred political system” (see methodology at the end), show that although a clear majority of citizens (79% in 2025) still consider democracy the best form of government, the share of those who would accept an authoritarian regime has grown. Comparing the Quality of Democracy surveys from 2007 and 2025, this figure rose from 5.8% to 8.6%, and exceeds 18% when adding those who say they are indifferent on the matter.
What stands out is that this increase is concentrated among the youngest. Among 18–24-year-olds, sympathy for authoritarianism rose from 7.3% in 2007 to 17.3% in 2025; among 25–34-year-olds, from 5.4% to 17.4%. In other words, those under 35, born after Franco’s dictatorship, are today the most open to non-democratic alternatives.
Young Italians express similar views, according to a YouGov study published in July 2025 for Germany’s Tui Stiftung on young Europeans’ confidence in democracy. Only 56% of respondents (young people aged 16–26 from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland and the UK) support democracy unconditionally. As for satisfaction with the democratic system, 43% of young Italians said they were dissatisfied and 24% said they would support an authoritarian government “in certain circumstances”, a percentage similar to that found in France, Spain, Poland and Greece.
For the expert Kye Allen “a quote that perfectly captures the interplay between social media’s amplifying effect and the normalisation” of these narratives is the statement made in 2024 by Vox MP Manuel Mariscal in Spain’s Congress: “Thanks to social media, many young people are discovering that the post-Civil War period was not as dark as this Government claims, but rather a time of reconstruction, progress and reconciliation to achieve national unity.”
Allen believes that part of the solution lies in the need for greater content moderation on platforms, as well as additional features that allow users to access a comprehensive explanation of certain historical events such as the Holocaust, alongside educational reforms.
Terms, hashtags and emojis: how evade platform rules
UNESCO has been studying hidden language for years, such as the coded words used to deny the Holocaust, and urges platforms to act “to break the cycle of algorithms that actively amplify content inciting hatred,” the institution told Maldita.es. “The difficulty in keeping up with such keywords lies in the fact that they are based on a constantly evolving lexical and ideological repertoire,” UNESCO added.
In the considered “antisemitic” discourse (prejudice or hatred against Jewish people, the foundation of the Holocaust) disseminated using coded words, numbers such as 1488 are used. The figure combines two white-supremacist symbols: the “Fourteen Words” slogan about protecting white children, and 88, shorthand for Heil Hitler (H being the eighth letter of the alphabet). Other phrases include “Have a totally joyful day,” an apparently benign wish whose English acronym TJD stands for “Total Jewish Death.”
To deny the existence of the Holocaust, despite overwhelming documented evidence of its existence, terms such as “Holocuento” (“Holo-story”), “Holoengaño” (“Holo-hoax”), or “Ana Fraude” to refer to Anne Frank, the Jewish girl victim of the Holocaust known for having kept a diary during the two years she spent hiding in Amsterdam, are used. UNESCO notes that Holocaust denial began even before the end of the Second World War “when the perpetrators of the genocide sought to conceal or obscure their crimes,” and therefore emphasises that “it is importante to understand the rhetorical resources and strategies employed in Holocaust-denial discourse” in order to decode them.
There are also numerous ways of referring to Adolf Hitler without naming him directly: Some of these include “Austrian painter” (it is said that the Führer wanted to dedicate himself to painting, but was rejected), “the mustachioed one,” “Uncle A,” or his initials AH. Furthermore, the hashtag #AHTR stands for “Adolf Hitler was right.”
In Spain, coded terms such as CAFE (a Falangist slogan attributed to General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano that was used to say that everyone on the opposing side had to be shot), abbreviations like Æ (a term that translate as “Arriba España”, “Up with Spain”, a Falangist cry), or FF, which refers to Franco Fridays (an expression of unclear origin that is used to commemorate Francisco Franco’s figure once a week) are common examples.
Similarly, in Italy, Benito Mussolini is known by a range of nicknames that are replicated on social media to refer to Il Duce. For example, Mascellone (“big jaw”), Pelatone (“bald head”), Crapa pelada (“bald head” in Lombard dialect) or Gran Babbo (“big daddy”), among others.
Beyond alphanumeric codes or cryptic words, emojis are also used. Within antisemitic discourse, Jews are referred to as animals — 🐀 (rat), 🐍 (snake), 🐷 (pig), or 🐙 (octopus). Another animal used to allude to Nazism or Francoism without showing prohibited imagery by platforms, is the eagle (🦅), featured on Spain’s flag during the dictatorship and alongside the swastika (known as the Reichsadler or German Imperial eagle). The raised hand (✋) emoji symbolises the Roman salute, associated with fascist movements, while double or triple lightning bolts (⚡️⚡️⚡️) are used to allude the SS, the organisation founded by Hitler in 1925 to protect Nazi Party leaders and which played a very important role in the Holocaust. Other examples include the runic ᛋᛋ symbol, representing the SS insignia, and the swastika (卐), the hooked cross adopted as the Nazi Party emblem in 1920.
