The year 2020 was not only the period of a global pandemic outbreak, but also marked a significant rise of antisemitic discourse on social media, according to a 2020-2021 report by the Fighting Online Antisemitism movement published on Wednesday.
The report summarizes the published content from around the world over the last 12 months and focuses on the top five media platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.
Twitter was the most antisemitic platform, with 36% of the overall global antisemitic content, while TikTok was last with only 2%. The Middle East proved to be the biggest source of antisemitic content with 30%, while 10% came from Europe and 9% from the US.
The report notes that the general policies for censoring and blocking on social media platforms are that videos that call for the destruction of Israel or that feature vandalizing of the Israeli flag were not removed as they are seen as political opinion, while content which called for the harming of people was removed.
"The alarming findings of the report require an immediate gathering of relevant government ministries," according to Tomer Aldubi, founder and CEO of Fighting Online Antisemitism. "Only in the last wave of violence have we witnessed aspects of antisemitism online and their impact on global public opinion. We must understand that today's fight is not only against Iran and enemies of Israel, but also antisemitism and public opinion."