Scientific research · 3 November 2026
In autumn 2026, France saw two social movements: a high-school student movement, with school blockades on 1 October, then a general mobilisation on 17 October, with demonstrations marked by major clashes. The authorities then considered temporarily suspending TikTok. We analysed nearly one million public videos.
See the results ↓The study
Several hundred high schools blockaded on 1 and 2 October, between 550,000 and 800,000 demonstrators on 17 October. We studied the videos posted from France about these mobilisations. Their audience follows these two waves.
Views of the videos posted each day about the mobilisations
Findings
Three arguments were put forward to justify restricting social media. Here is what we found.
1 Was TikTok used to coordinate the violence?
Locations mentioned in advance, referrals to private messaging apps, identical messages posted simultaneously: such traces are rare.
Fewer than 0.03% of comments refer to a private messaging group.
Cumulative views before 17 October
Depending on the day, videos calling for violence gather at most 0.11% of views.
2 Did images of violence dominate?
A video can fall into several categories, so the shares do not sum to 100%.
Share of views of videos about the mobilisations
“Small creators” have fewer than 50,000 followers; “others” are influencers, anonymous pages and other accounts.
Media: 1.6%
Explicit calls for violence make up 0.27% of all comments.
Comments under videos showing violence
3 Was the violence artificially amplified?
Content labelled as AI accounts for less than 3% of views. None of our six indicators reveals any large-scale interference operation.
Views of a video showing violence, compared with the same account's videos without violence, day of publication taken into account
What these results do not say. They cover public videos only. They do not rule out what happens in private exchanges or personalised recommendations. That is why we need your watch history.
The note
What do 16 billion views reveal about the mobilisations of autumn 2026?
To cite: Benjamin Guinaudeau, Isabelle Guinaudeau, Hugo Subtil, « Violences sur TikTok », Observatoire du bien-être du Cepremap, n°2026-21, 03/11/2026. This version is an English translation of the original note published in French (OBE Note 2026-21, “Violences sur TikTok”). In case of discrepancy, the French version prevails.