Anti-Semitic symbols and threats along with posts on social media denying the Holocaust have increased by 30 percent, according to a new report by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), with Twitter hosting the vast bulk of offending material.
The WJC-commissioned study, made in collaboration with Vigo Social Intelligence is titled Anti-Semitic Symbols and Holocaust Denial in Social Media Posts: January 2018. It reveals a dramatic increase in the number of incidents already in 2018 compared with the same period in 2016, with the U.S. and Europe leading the way.
The study is a follow-up to an initial survey released in 2016. It was intended to cover the period between January 1-24, which “holds significant importance leading up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 and coinciding with the World Jewish Congress’ 2018 We Remember campaign,” the organization said.
Key findings of the report indicate that 30 percent more posts using anti-Semitic symbols were recorded during this time frame, along with twice the number of conversations denying the Holocaust.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, this is not the first time Twitter specifically has been accused of hosting vile content that has ultimately been exposed by activists.
Last year an Israeli-born Jewish comedian in Germany daubed anti-Semitic tweets on the street outside Twitter’s headquarters in Hamburg to draw attention to the social media giant’s inaction in tackling online hate.
Slurs including “Jewish Pig”, “Let’s gas some Jews together” and “Gays to Auschwitz” were chosen to be spray-painted by Shahak Shapira.
Shapira produced a YouTube video to highlight his protest called ‘#HEYTWITTER’, in which he claims that he has reported almost 300 obnoxious tweets and more than 150 hate comments to Facebook so far this year. Shapira says around 80 percent were removed, but has only have received nine answers for Twitter.
Now the latest report shows that between January 1-24, 550 social media posts each day, and 23 per hour, contained neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic symbols. An average of 108 posts each day, or 4.5 per hour, denied the Holocaust, and 13,200 posts during the period included symbols or signs related to the Holocaust or Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Just over a third of content containing anti-Semitic symbols originated in the United States, according to the report, and a full 68per cent of Holocaust denial.
Poland, Serbia and Switzerland were catapulted into the top ten countries for the first time, while the survey found an approximate daily average of 550 posts containing the use of neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic symbols.
WJC CEO Robert Singer called on social media giants to rein in anti-Semitic content on their platforms.
“It is easy to believe that anti-Semitism online is reserved for fringe elements, but the true scale of the problem is frightening,” he said. “Today, nobody has to go looking for such hatred — it is in plain sight on the world’s most heavily used sites: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
“It is incumbent upon these companies to show moral corporate responsibility and abide by their own guidelines restricting hate speech. We urge governments to strictly regulate this issue to curb its proliferation, and make the digital world a safer space for all.”
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