and abroad, especially among younger generations. Notably, there is a lack of knowledge about antisemitism and its history both in the U.S. during the same period a year before, in May 2020. Most recently, following the conflict between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, ADL documented a disturbing rise in antisemitic content on multiple social media platforms during a seven-day period, including 17,000 tweets on Twitter that were variations of “Hitler was right.” This came alongside ADL’s data on offline antisemitic incidents in May 2021 being more than double the number reported in the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Representative Jerrold Nadler, both Democrats from New York, received the largest portion of abusive tweets. During the weeks preceding the 2020 national elections, ADL found that Jewish members of Congress faced antisemitic abuse on Twitter. Prominent figures in American life also have been specifically targeted by online antisemitism. Moreover, ADL’s 2020 survey of hate, harassment, and positive social experiences in online games found that 10 percent of American adult gamers encountered Holocaust denial while playing - a sizable figure as 65 percent of American adults play games. Thirteen percent of Jewish respondents who experienced harassment said they were physically threatened. Thirty-one percent of those Jewish respondents who were exposed to online hate reported they felt they were targeted because of their religion. In ADL’s 2021 Online Hate and Harassment survey, 36 percent of Jewish respondents said they experienced some form of online harassment. Rather than being relegated to a fringe corner of the internet, antisemitic content is quickly and easily found on major technology platforms that have hundreds of millions, if not billions, of users. Fourth, ADL’s Center for Technology and Society (CTS) independently researched the accessibility of data from various platforms, because the ability for researchers to retrieve data from platforms is an essential predicate for any third-party efforts to measure the prevalence of antisemitism and hate online.įinally, ADL created a report card with grades to reflect all these metrics.ĭigital spaces can be unwelcoming and unsafe for many Jewish people. These programs are designed to give partners that work with tech companies a special pathway to report violative content. Third, for items that were not removed or otherwise actioned as a result of the initial reporting from ordinary user accounts, ADL investigators again reported the content, this time through trusted flagger programs in which ADL participates across four of the platforms included in this investigation. Second, ADL used accounts that were not publicly affiliated with ADL to report content under the platform’s hate policies to see how platforms would enforce their policies when ordinary users flagged antisemitic content. Between three and eleven examples of anti-Jewish content were identified for each platform we investigated. To determine how platforms responded to reports of violative antisemitic content, ADL investigators first searched for a handful of examples on each site. Twitter received a B-, the highest grade given, and Roblox earned a D-, the lowest grade of all platforms studied. This is the first time that ADL has produced a report card grading platforms on their policies and enforcement against antisemitism.ĪDL’s investigation showed that the majority of platforms performed at a middling level, with most earning grades in the C range. The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, after which there was an increase in antisemitic incidents reported domestically, added another layer to Jews’ concerns over surging antisemitism and safety - 60 percent of Jewish Americans witnessed behavior or comments they deemed antisemitic following the conflict between Israel and Hamas.Īgainst this alarming backdrop, are tech platforms doing enough to combat antisemitism? To help evaluate this, ADL analyzed how well nine platforms (Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Roblox, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube) addressed submitted reports of antisemitic content. According to ADL’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, 20 were, respectively, the highest and third-highest years on record for cases of harassment, vandalism, and assault against Jews in the United States since tracking began in 1979. In recent years, American Jews have faced increased threats of violence and harassment both online and offline.
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