According to the Anti-Defamation League ( HERE ), 2021 was a low point in the history of U.S. anti-Semitism. The organization recorded 2,717 anti-Semitic incidents. This is the highest value since records began in 1979. The book “Antisemitism on Social Media”, edited by Sabine von Mering from Brandeis University ( HERE ) and Monika Hübscher from the University of Haifa ( HERE ), examined how Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and Co could even fuel this increase.
From “read siege” to “deep state”
According to the authors, the right today is a loose, chaotic and decentralized collection of groups. If a group is banned from one platform, switch it to the next. In the early 2010s, right-wingers anchored the message “read siege” on the social web, a reference to a violently anti-Semitic text by James Mason from the 1980s. Because the meme was encoded, it was not flagged as hate speech by social media platforms and was widely shared.
According to most studies, anti-Semitic postings worldwide account for less than one percent. A large-scale survey even came to the conclusion that it might only be 0.00015 percent. The majority of the results indicate that anti-Semitic content is likely to be much less visible than generally assumed. The QAnon movement , which uses social media to reach from the fringes into the political mainstream, appears to be primarily focused on spreading conspiracy theories about Donald Trump and the Democratic Party.
Conspiracy theories are booming
Even if groups do not explicitly focus on anti-Semitism, the authors say, their conspiracy theories still draw on historically anti-Semitic knowledge and topics. The “deep state” can be traced back to the late 18th century, when the Lutheran pastor Johann Heinrich Schulz accused the Jews of isolating themselves from the societies in which they lived and thus forming a “state within a state”. governed by their own religious laws.
In the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, too, the idea of a state within a state goes hand in hand with the idea of a Jewish world conspiracy. There are parallels between QAnon's obsession with Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros and historical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the Jewish Rothschild banking family. QAnon's focus on pedophilia and sexual abuse, however, has its roots in the ritual murder legend , according to which Jews ritually sacrifice Christian children at Passover.
Often dangerous for tweens and teens
According to scientists, TikTok has now become a magnet and breeding ground for violent and extremist content. This is particularly concerning since the platform is very popular with tweens ( HERE ) and teens. The experts examined the content from February to May 2020 and 2021. They found a 41 percent increase in anti-Semitic postings. Anti-Semitic comments increased by 912 percent. Anti-Semitic user names increased by 1,375 percent.
Despite these large increases, the actual volume of content remained low compared to the total volume, they say. However, a user base of more than one billion still means that just one posting can reach a large number of people. An anti-Semitic song about Jews being killed in Auschwitz has been accessed more than six million times worldwide.
Already read? Parents against social media
Source: press release
Notes:
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