Online antisemitism database CyberWell published its "State of Online Antisemitism" report for 2023 last week and noted the sharp increase in antisemitism since October 7.
CyberWell is a non-profit that launched the first-ever open database of online antisemitic content with a mission to drive the enforcement and improvement of community standards and hate speech policies across social media platforms.
They monitor Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube posts in both English and Arabic and serve as an advisor to both Meta and TikTok.
Before October 7 the largest share of antisemitic content in the database came from X followed by Facebook.
2023 can be neatly divided into three parts, January to May, June to September, and October to December. Each section shows a slightly different pattern which can be correlated to events in Gaza.
A year in review
From January to May, there was a clear decline in antisemitism online, especially on X. X had over half of all the antisemitic content in January but by April the vast majority was on Facebook, although even on Facebook the total amount was still less than in January.
In the middle of May 2023, there was a short-lived Israeli operation against Islamic Jihad in Gaza lasting approximately four days. May saw the first reversal of the downward trend with nearly double the antisemitic content and with X quickly reclaiming its top spot.
The period from June until September saw a huge increase in online antisemitism, X and Facebook made up nearly 100% of content sources. Antisemitism on Facebook saw a steady decline in this period from its June peak to almost none in September. While antisemitic content on X remained relatively stable, during September X held nearly all the antisemitic content recorded.
From September to October antisemitism quadrupled with all platforms except for YouTube seeing a massive increase.
Antisemitism on TikTok went from having almost no antisemitic content to the top spot for October, containing nearly half of all the antisemitic content recorded in October.
Antisemitism on social media remained strong with a slight reduction by November and an even smaller reduction in December.
By December antisemitism was at about half where it had been in October, with the majority being found on X.
CyberWell also showed that online Arabic language antisemitism has become increasingly violent since October 7. Calls for violence against Jews before October 7 were barely even a fraction of the content, while after October 7 they became 61.2% of Arabic language antisemitic content online.