Even before Ye—the musician and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West—made headlines after his antisemitic rant on Twitter last fall, there had already been a steady rise of hate directed at Jews across social media. Earlier this year, the Israeli-based Fighting Online Antisemitism (FOA) reported such posts had doubled in the past year.
This has included Holocaust denial and anti-Israel hate.
According to new research conducted as a joint effort by the Knesset Caucus for Israel-American Jewry Relations, the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), and presented at the Knesset Caucus for Israel-American Jewry Relations, such antisemitic and anti-Zionist social media discourse has on real-world events.
“The Polarization Pendulum,” an analysis of approximately 100 million tweets from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022, found that the shifting popularity of antisemitic and anti-Zionist tropes on Twitter in response to real-world events. Moreover, the research found that antisemitic and anti-Zionist tropes share virtually identical themes, such as bloodlust, dominance, covert control and replacement.
The research also found that online attacks against Jews domestically in the United States tend to correlate with conflict in Israel, while antagonism to Israel is behaviorally linked to antisemitism. It also suggested there was somewhat of a “double standard” against Israel on Twitter in particular.
Anti-Israel Tweets
The Ruderman Family Foundation and NCRI-led study noted that on the issue of human rights violations, on average Israel was mentioned 10 times more than any other country in the top 10 associated with the use of these terms on Twitter—and that included the U.S., South Africa, India, Saudi Arabia, New Caledonia, Canada, Indonesia, Niger, and Bangladesh.
It also found was that while Twitter in particular has become an echo chamber for political rhetoric, often times bordering on the extreme, antisemitism is coming from all directions.
“This is the politics of blame. It causes paralysis of democracies, which creates demand for more blame. Since both sides are blaming Jews as the exemplar of moral evil, they converge on antisemitism as the world becomes increasingly paralyzed,” explained Dr. Joel Finkelstein, principal investigator at the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).
“What we see is that populists from each side use the antisemitism that is closest to their populist trope,” added Finkelstein. “They use such tropes not only against Jews, but also against one another to seize power.”
The Platforms Are Doing Little To Stop It
Another study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, conducted in 2021, found that 84 percent of racist anti-Jewish posts failed to be acted on. This is a problem that will continue to worse, warned Jason Mollica, professorial lecturer and program director in the School of Communication at American University
“Sadly, antisemitism on social media has been allowed to grow,” said Mollica. “Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and even TikTok have done little to stop the spread. One of the things we often see on social media is the amplification of a post that is racist and/or antisemitic.”
The problem is often times made worse by those who try to do the “right thing” and report such content. Instead of stopping its spread, it can amplify it.
“While people feel they are doing something noble by calling it out, say on Twitter, the algorithm actually rewards the response. It shows up as a trending topic or even a hashtag,” added Mollica. “This isn’t to say antisemitism should be ignored on social networks and it will then go away. It’s important to continue to pressure these companies to do more.”
Mollica also said that Elon Musk has failed to follow through on his efforts to confront hateful speech on Twitter.
“He has claimed Twitter will limit ‘hate tweets;’ however, there has not been a noticeable change,” Mollica continue. “A German organization, HateAid, has filed a legal challenge for Twitter’s failure to remove those kinds of posts.”
Unfortunately, the problem isn’t just limited to Twitter and Antisemitism will remain a problem on social media largely because it is one that is being ignored.
It has been said too many times that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”—and as of now, little to nothing is being to stop this evil on social media.
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