Flagging Virulent Anti-Semitism on Social Media Platforms

"If we can come up with something that's common to everybody, it will make life much easier for the providers [social media web giants] to co-operate with us."

"People often innocently retweet something without understanding the implications of it [underlying racism and anti-Semitism]."

"If the media platform lets them know that, they can make a conscious decision whether or not they want to retweet it, knowing that it's been flagged as being anti-Semitic content or other types of racist, misogynistic, etc., content."

"Over the last several years, there has been an alarming increase in antisemitic incidents across the globe, with many originating online. As social media posts do not stop at international borders, members of the national legislatures of Australia, Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States have come together across party lines to launch the Inter-Parliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism."

"[Online hate, including antisemitic animus], is growing exponentially. Posts are viewed across national borders and impact people in many jurisdictions. Social media platforms have failed to adequately address hatred on their own. But they cannot be expected to create different policies in every separate country. By working together, we can create international definitions and recommendations for regulating social media platforms that can then be reviewed and hopefully implemented by each individual country."

Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, Parliament of Canada

 

Anthony Housefather Mount Royal, QC

Mr. Speaker, “Am Yisrael Chai. We are a Jewish nation that will stand tall.... Terrorism...will not take us down.” These were the defiant words of Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein this weekend after a gunman with an assault rifle opened fire at his synagogue, after he saw his friend Lori Gilbert-Kaye lying dead on the floor, after he saw eight-year-old Noya Dayan carried away bleeding, after he himself had been shot and wounded, and yes, six months after 11 other Jews were killed at another shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Before these murders, attacks on Jews at prayer did not happen in North America. Now, with neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville chanting, “Jews will not replace us”, with an anti-Semitic cartoon being run in the New York Times and with B'nai Brith reporting that over 2,000 anti-Semitic incidents occurred in Canada in 2018, we need a national action plan on anti-Semitism, and we need it now.

A new task force has been launched to target anti-Semitism's growing prevalence on social media platforms. Politicians from Australia, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States have joined in a concerted effort to prod and influence the media giants of the Internet to become more vigilant about reacting to and identifying overt strains of anti-Semitism they allow free reign to on their platforms. Two members of Canada's Parliament have now joined with other legislators in the formation of an international push to curb the proliferation of anti-Semitic content online.

 

The task force has the following goals:

• Establishing consistent messaging and policy from Parliaments and legislatures around the world in order to hold social media platforms, including Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Google, accountable;

• The adoption and publication of transparent policies related to hate speech;

• Raising awareness about antisemitism on social media platforms and its consequences in order to acknowledge the tremendous responsibility that comes with the power the platforms hold;

• Emphasizing that if one minority cannot be protected by hate speech policies, then none can be. This Task Force will therefore serve as a means for protecting all minority groups from online hate; Underscoring that the fight against antisemitism is a non-partisan consensus in democratic countries.

 

Online incidents of anti-Semitism outlined by a British report released this summer, were on the rise in the United kingdom, driven in part by conspiracy theories claiming Jews are responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether this was in evil collusion with Beijing has not yet been revealed. But China, no doubt, breathes a sigh of relief that COVID-19 can in theory be dubbed the Jewish COVID and not the Wuhan Disease. 

 

According to human rights advocacy group B'nai Brith, anti-Semitic incidents in Canada have increased overall, with an 11 percent rise in online harassment, not too squeamish about advocating genocide. The manner in which various countries measure and define the pathology of anti-Semitism is recognized as a barrier to mounting a convincing argument for their respective legislatures to commit to passing similar laws which would then pave the way to collectively pressure social media web giants to act on the matter, which should be resolved.

The need to address online hate messages and offer popular media platform sites improved tools to report instances of flagrant hate messages has long predated this current allied initiative on anti-Semitism. Social media companies have faced sustained pressure from various sources to become more committed to addressing online hate. Twitter began flagging some tweets from U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year, for ostensibly violating its policies, including potential threats of harm against identifiable groups.

 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei  (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

However, when Twitter's attention has been drawn to tweets that are blatantly and violently human rights-offensive and urged to take action, as for example when Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweets for the destruction of Israel, or makes use of vicious and racist language to describe the state of Israel, Twitter responds that those remarks reflect "foreign policy sabre-rattling" and as such fail to fall into the basket of hateful, racist or anti-Semitic violations of human rights.

 

Conservative MP Marty Morantz who has partnered with Mr. Housefather on this Canadian arm of the international group, explains that though the task force is focused on anti-Semitism its work is more inclusive: "Hate against one group online is really a concern to all groups. We need to emphasize that if we can't protect one minority, we can't protect any of them." A distinction, Mr. Morantz stated, must be recognized between free speech and speech that defies existing criminal laws, with a focus on the latter. 

 

Many anti-racism demonstrators targeted the blatant pro-Nazi sentiment present among the white nationalist and supremacist groups. (Stephen Lam/Reuters)