EXTREMISMThere Is a Lot of Antisemitic Hate Speech on Social Media – and Algorithms Are Partly to Blame
Antisemitic incidents have shown a sharp rise in the United States. There were 2,717 incidents in 2021. This represents an increase of 34% over 2020. In Europe, the European Commission found a sevenfold increase in antisemitic postings across French language accounts, and an over thirteenfold increase in antisemitic comments within German channels during the pandemic. Contemporary antisemitism manifests itself in various forms such as GIFs, memes, vlogs, comments and reactions such as likes and dislikes on the platforms. The continuous exposure to antisemitic content at a young age, scholars say, can lead to both normalization of the content and radicalization of the Tik-Tok viewer.
Antisemitic incidents have shown a sharp rise in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based Jewish civil rights group that has been tracking cases since 1979, found that there were 2,717 incidents in 2021. This represents an increase of 34% over 2020. In Europe, the European Commission found a sevenfold increase in antisemitic postings across French language accounts, and an over thirteenfold increase in antisemitic comments within German channels during the pandemic.
Together with other scholars who study antisemitism, we started to look at how technology and the business model of the social media platforms were driving antisemitism. A 2022 book that we co-edited, “Antisemitism on Social Media,” offers perspectives from the U.S., Germany, Denmark, Israel, India, U.K. and Sweden on how algorithms on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube contribute to spreading antisemitism.
What Does Antisemitism on Social Media Look Like?
Hatred against Jews on social media is often expressed in stereotypical depictions of Jews that stem from Nazi propaganda or in denial of the Holocaust.
Antisemitic social media posts also express hatred toward Jews that is based on the notion that all Jews are Zionist – that is, they are part of the national movement supporting Israel as a Jewish state – and Zionism is constructed as innately evil.
However, today’s antisemitism is not only directed at Israelis, and it does not always take the form of traditional slogans or hate speech. Contemporary antisemitism manifests itself in various forms such as GIFs, memes, vlogs, comments and reactions such as likes and dislikes on the platforms.
Scholar Sophie Schmalenberger found that antisemitism is expressed not just in blunt, hurtful language and images on social media, but also in coded forms that may easily remain undetected. For example, on Facebook, Germany’s radical right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, omits the mentioning of the Holocaust in posts about the Second World War. It also uses antisemitic language and rhetoric that present antisemitism as acceptable.
Antisemitism may take on subtle forms such as in emojis. The emoji combination of a star of David, a Jewish symbol, and a rat resembles the Nazi propaganda likening Jews to vermin. In Nazi Germany, the constant repetition and normalization of such depictions led to the dehumanization of Jews and eventually the acceptance of genocide.
