Hearts for hating Activists: how far-right actors dominate polarized TikTok debates on climate protest

This study investigates degrees of polarization in political climate protest debates on TikTok. Drawing on a dataset of automatically transcribed TikTok videos posted by German politicians between 2022 and 2025 (N ≈ 1,700), alongside associated user comments (N ≈ 53,000), this study compares discussions on general climate activism, reformist activism (Fridays for Future), and disruptive activism (Letzte Generation). Using a mixed-method approach that combines Large Language Model-based frame classification, stance detection, and network analysis, this study operationalizes Discursive Polarization across ideological, affective, and interactional dimensions. Findings reveal that while all protest debates on TikTok are polarized, disruptive protests are associated with particularly intense attacks and less attention to policy-oriented climate discussions. However, conservative and far-right politicians consistently frame all activist groups as extremists, criminals, or threats to public order, with far-right accounts dominating content production and audience support. Network analyses demonstrate that far-right politicians and their supporters form highly connected clusters in which both emotionally positive and hostile user engagement amplifies elite-level antagonism. Even moderate posts by center-left or progressive politicians attract disproportionate backlash, suggesting asymmetric polarization dynamics linked to partisan user networks. Overall, the study shows that political TikTok debates around climate protest are consistently polarized along ideological lines, but that greater disruptiveness coincides with more intense antagonistic engagement and weaker Connective Action among supporters. Most crucially, far-right politicians emerge as the clear beneficiaries of this polarization, occupying central positions in antagonist networks of Connective Counteraction and dominating the debate through disruption.