Barcelona unrest: how to fabricate a protest in the age of TikTok

I live in Barcelona, it was no actual protest as the article accurately explain but weaponised youth. It's incredible how completely artificial and easy it was to make happen, literally none of my friends living in the city saw it coming, me included, these riots came out of nowhere.

To nay-sayers: There is real discontent and there are real grassroots protests, however that movement has been hijacked and turned into a widespread astroturfing campaign that's calling for protests and unrest all across Europe.

Spain: https://files.maldita.es/uploads/2026/10/6adf4cb02eb11captur...

Belgium and Austria: https://files.maldita.es/uploads/2026/10/6adf4cdc68db4captur...

Germany: https://files.maldita.es/uploads/2026/10/6adf4ccfdee54captur...

France and Germany (inciting violence): https://files.maldita.es/uploads/2026/10/6adf6524f4131pasted...

^Source: https://maldita.es/investigaciones/20261026/tiktok-manifesta...

There are more of these posters circulating and calling for protests in every European country that locals know nothing about and never actually happened (i.e. Oct 17): https://www.tiktok.com/@genz.rights/photo/769540155445459688...

As someone from Spain: those posters weren't made by a (native) Spaniard. They contain several weird sentences absolutely nobody uses.

My bet: foreign meddling.

I don't know.

This itself seems like propaganda to blame the unrest on TikTok or foreign countries, rather than fundamental issues within Spain or Europe generally.

It can both be true that TikTok was a factor in the increased property damage and that Spanish citizens are unhappy and ready to protest. Or that 130 people were ready to do property damage and there also, TikTok videos.

Besides Ireland and parts of the UK Halloween traditionally hasn't been a thing in Europe and some people are adamantly against it being celebrated. But here in Switzerland in the recent years it's become the night where teenagers/students go out late and vandalize and be nuisances, start fires, etc.

This year it's on a Saturday and there's also general unrest with frequent protests (Israel/Palestine, Kurds, students, etc etc etc) so it's probably going to be worse than usual.

This doesn't seem like a full article without bothering to interview ANY of the arrested 130 people.

What I will say is that getting tiktoks in front of hundreds of thousands of people in a coordinated way isn't easy, and they won't come out if they weren't already passionate about something. If there are written records proving this was made to cause chaos specifically then they should subpoena tiktok for exact records.

Relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCvPPaIN5Ew

It's a video on AI-manufactured rage-bait. Quite a few plot-twists that I won't spoil here.

A subtle form of propaganda is choosing what to call legitimate or not, since there’s really no first principles reason for any legitimacy

"fake protest"

The people protesting there weren't fake. This is just propaganda.

While everyone are busy hoarding real estate, here it comes the Chinese-Russian and American-Israeli hypnotic brainwashing with sweatshops in South Asia. Hopefully the growth of real estate market was worth it.

In the US, I heard lots of conspiracies about who was really behind the BLM riots, Charlottesville, Jan 6th, the Trump assassination attempts, etc.

The same thing is happening here in the comments. Everyone is looking for the puppeteer. I’m not sure one way or the other.

On the one hand, it’s true that when you look through history, you often find that there was a “someone” (e.g. the Germans funding the Bolshevik Revolution, or the CIA shenanigans in the Middle East and South America).

On the other hand, can’t these things also legitimately arise from disenfranchised groups without needing to point to a boogie man?

The eternal way is: follow the money. Not politician declarations or poster designs. The money. I have some preconceptions about it - based on who could profit from a broken EU - but still, follow the money.

The CIA and NED have been creating color revolutions for decades. This isn't new.

https://nonsite.org/change-agent-gene-sharps-neoliberal-nonv...

Isn't it suspicious that EU nation most vocal about Israel's atrocities gets targeted by campaigns like these, when Israel has the most advanced propaganda machines globally ?

Digital markets act in EU Tiktok is a gatekeeper. Special rules apply

https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers-portal_...