Examples of Antisemitism on Social Media

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Date:   March 8, 2022

RE:       Examples of Antisemitism on Social Media

Background:

There are many and varied examples of antisemitism found on all social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Clubhouse. These posts range from overt, grotesque examples to those that are more subtle and insidious. Social media is used by almost every Canadian. Approximately 95 % of Canadians use at least one platform, and platforms such as TikTok, and YouTube have a high rate of usage among Canadians 18 years old or younger.

Antisemitism on social media takes on many manifestations, including, to name only a few, Holocaust denial and distortion, Jewish conspiracy theories, blood libel, and erasure and delegitimization of Israel.

In 2021, CIJA launched the Not on My Feed campaign, to combat online antisemitism and hate. Watch a video presenting antisemitism that comes up within an hour of scrolling on TikTok here. 

Recent incidents inciting antisemitism on social media include:

• At the time of the May 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas, during a seven-day period, according to the ADL, there were 17,000 tweets spreading variations of the phrase, “Hitler was right.”
  
  
• In connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue identified a seven-fold increase in French-language antisemitic content in January and February 2021.
  
  
• Supreme Iranian Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s Twitter account regularly promotes Iranian antisemitic propaganda, including calling for the violent destruction of the Jewish state.
  
  
• In another incident on TikTok, a song with the lyrics “We’re going on a trip to a place called Auschwitz, it’s shower time,” appeared, accompanied by various user-generated videos, which, collectively, were viewed by millions.
  
  
• A fall 2020 TikTok trend included young teens sharing videos dressing up and imaging what it would be like to be a Holocaust victim. Such videos have come under fire for being ill-informed and cheapening the memory of the Holocaust.

Antisemitism online can manifest into real world violence:

Research shows that there is often a correlation between online and real-world hatred and violence.

As detailed by the Network Research Contagion Institute at Rutgers University, there was a significant uptick in online rhetoric calling for the freeing of “Lady Al Qaeda” just before the Texas synagogue hostage crisis. This was also accompanied by antisemitic rhetoric.

In Pittsburgh in 2018, prior to opening fire and murdering 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue, the terrorist had posted an antisemitic conspiracy on the dark-web social media site “Gab.”