F53 Money

How Italy’s mafia uses social media to recruit new blood Economist  Nov 15th 2025 

Mobsters are exploiting the social-media app to normalise their
image, mythologise their culture and even to launder money, 
TikTok’s algorithm, based on user interaction, soon subjects casual
users to a perpetual torrent of violence, loyalty and ostentation,
“including wives of prisoners offering advice, photos of victims of
clan wars, young heirs flaunting luxury brands, repentant mafiosi
offering commentary…and parades of scooters designed to
intimidate”, the report said. This continual exposure to “grief,
violence, luxury and prison…has trained audiences to consume
criminal imagery as entertainment.”