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Algorithms of the Big Tech Reich: The Evolution of Online Antisemitism Since October 7
Social media applications, showing Twitter before it was changed to ‘X.’ Photo: Public Domain.
In the face of the current wave of hatred against them, Jewish communities all across the world share a fundamental and timeless desire: to be seen and treated as human beings.
Antisemitism, however, has historically sought to strip away the perception of Jews as human from the fabric of religions, societies, and international forums.
Today, the assault on the perception of “the Jew” as a human is being executed through supercharged algorithms at an unprecedented scale.
In the year following the October 7 Hamas massacre, data from the major social media platforms revealed a troubling escalation in online antisemitism.
Trending anti-Jewish narratives online have moved beyond classic tropes like disdainful jokes or conspiracy theories about Jewish control, and have morphed into overt hostility, calls for violence, and a dehumanization of Jews as inherently evil. This is not merely an extension of past trends; it represents a perilous escalation in anti-Jewish rhetoric.
To effectively prevent purposeful widespread violence against Jews and safeguard national security in any Western democracy, social media reform and legislation requiring algorithmic transparency is crucial.
Recognizing the need for proactive solutions until the legal impasse on social media accountability was breached, I founded CyberWell, a nonprofit organization that launched the first open database of online antisemitism in 2022. Our efforts provide a unique multilingual analysis of online Jew-hatred, following the guidelines of major social media platforms. Today, we are official Trusted Partners of both Meta and TikTok, and share real-time alerts and digital policy compliance analysis on online Jew-hate in both English and Arabic, with additional platforms we monitor. Our goal is to increase the enforcement and drive the improvement of content moderation policies across the digital space. Our most recent report unpacks the evolution of online antisemitism in the year since October 7.
October 7 marked an unprecedented hijacking of mainstream social media by Hamas, who fashioned engagement algorithms into tools of psychological warfare. Unlike the slow drip of information surrounding the genocide of Jews that was committed during the Holocaust, the screams and gore of the hunt for Jews and perceived “collaborators” in Israel were broadcast at a massive scale, even to the personal Facebook feeds of those families slain within their own homes.
In the year since these attacks, CyberWell’s monitoring technology detected a 36.6 percent rise in content likely to be antisemitic across social media platforms. Most notably, there was an 86 percent spike in anti-Jewish content within the first three weeks after October 7. This flood of antisemitic content contributed to a significant increase in calls for violence against Jews — rising from 5 percent in the 11 months before the attacks to 13 percent of verified anti-Jewish content post-attack. Alarmingly, 61 percent of verified antisemitic content in Arabic in the weeks following October 7 justified or supported violence against Jews.
A pattern reminiscent of post-Holocaust denial also emerged immediately after October 7. This time, however, denial narratives were propelled into mainstream discourse through social media algorithms. Our October 7 deep dive report found that a mere 300 verified examples of denial content reached 25 million accounts within just over a month, with X (formerly Twitter) showing the highest engagement rates for such narratives. Not is no wonder, then, that even Susan Sarandon denies that women were raped on October 7.
On the anniversary of the attacks, the same cell of anti-Israel influencers identified in CyberWell’s report amplified 10/7 denial that started spreading 10/7 denial narratives as early as October 8, 2023, released a 45-minute documentary further perpetuating this disinformation in violation of YouTube’s policies against violent event denial.
Initially, the most widespread narrative focused on denying the exploitation of sexual violence and rape during the attack; now, it has shifted to claiming that the Israeli state orchestrated the massacre. To date, only TikTok has directly recognized October 7 denial as prohibited content according to its community guidelines.
CyberWell’s data indicates a significant shift in trending antisemitic narratives. Before October 7, the most popular antisemitic theme was the trope of Jews controlling the world or seeking world domination. Post-attack, narratives predominantly cast Jews as the enemy (29.2 percent of verified content) or as inherently evil (21.5 percent). These narratives echo historical prejudices that have justified violence against Jews for centuries—from the Crusades to the Inquisition, to the religious oppression of Jews in Arab lands, and through the horrors of the Holocaust.
Today, algorithms, rather than prophets, religious institutions, or state-controlled media, are the primary amplifiers of this toxicity. The platforms showcase brutal acts against Jews while simultaneously facilitating a denial campaign aimed at dehumanizing them and shifting the blame onto their first line of defense. In this environment, Jews are increasingly viewed as less than human, rendering their suffering unworthy of sympathy and their right to defend themselves irrelevant, if not outrageous.
We Jews are patient zero for social media’s darker impulses. Campaigns against our humanity have long been effective and popular messaging for various overlords throughout history. Now, under the current regime of big tech and in light of the US-elections, we must urgently call for legislative reforms that enhance online safety and demand transparency in algorithms. Our lives depend on it.
Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor is the founder and executive director of CyberWell, an independent tech nonprofit working with social media platforms to monitor and catalog antisemitic rhetoric while improving enforcement and enhancement efforts through community standards and hate speech policies.
The post Algorithms of the Big Tech Reich: The Evolution of Online Antisemitism Since October 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.