409 Results

The Unique Challenges of Audio Content Moderation Part One: To Record or Not to Record

Article

May 13, 2021 This blog post is the first in a series of three articles that will explore the unique challenges audio content moderation poses for platforms creating audio-focused digital spaces. This first article focuses on the choices around recording audio, and includes recommendations regarding Clubhouse’s current practices around recording. The second will discuss reviewing audio. The third will be on current approaches and models of audio content moderation that have been publicly…

May 13, 2021

Iran's Khamenei Exploits Twitter for Al Quds Day

Article

May 07, 2021 By David Andrew Weinberg On the last Friday of Ramadan every year, the Government of Iran organizes what it calls Global Quds (i.e. Jerusalem) Day, which it uses as an opportunity to spread horrific propaganda calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, as well as messages of support for terrorist organizations and a deluge of antisemitic hate speech. This year was no exception. On Friday, May 7, the main English-language Twitter account attributed to Iran…

May 07, 2021

Facebook upholds Trump ban; Former head of Neo-Nazi group sentenced for swatting; NYC synagogue vandal arrested on hate crime charges

Article

May 07, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Four months after his ouster from Facebook and Instagram, the suspension of former president Donald Trump was upheld by the Facebook Oversight Board. A former leader in a violent neo-Nazi group was sentenced Tuesday to 41 months in prison for harassing journalists who reported on his activities and others. Police arrested a 29-year-old man on hate crime charges in connection with the vandalization of several Bronx synagogues, which included the…

May 07, 2021

ADL Statement on Facebook Oversight Board's Decision to Uphold Trump's Suspension from Platform

Press Release

New York, NY, May 5, 2021 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt issued the following statement today regarding the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision to uphold Facebook’s suspension of former President Donald Trump from the platform: We did not need four months and an unaccountable, secretive process to tell us what we already knew: Donald Trump should be immediately and permanently banned from Facebook. Six months will not change the fact…

May 05, 2021

Pandemic gives rise to antisemitic ‘Zoombombing’; Federal hate crime charges filed in Ahmaud Arbery death; NY synagogues vandalized

Article

April 30, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 ADL counted 196 cases of antisemitic “Zoombombing” attacks in the U.S. last year, including 114 against Jewish institutions, according to its annual report released this week. Three Georgia men were indicted on federal hate crime charges in connection with the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was shot to death while jogging through a South Georgia neighborhood last year. Authorities in New York City are looking for the…

April 30, 2021

The Verdict is In: How to Talk with Young People about the Derek Chauvin Murder Trial Verdict

Article

Amongst a crowd of people, a person holds a "Justice 4 Mr. Floyd" sign outside City Hall in downtown Minneapolis

April 21, 2021 The verdict has come down. The jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old Black man living in Minnesota, was killed while being arrested by the police. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, pinned Floyd to the ground while he was…

April 20, 2021

ADL Applauds Introduction of Social Media Transparency Bill

Press Release

Calif. legislation would require social media companies to publicly disclose corporate policies and key data and metrics on enforcement New York, NY, March 30, 2021...ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) welcomed the introduction of legislation from California State Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel that would require social media platforms to publicly disclose their content moderation policies regarding online hate/racism, disinformation, extremism, harassment and foreign interference, as well as key…

March 30, 2021

Asian-Americans Experience Rise in Severe Online Hate and Harassment, ADL Survey Finds

Press Release

ADL announces REPAIR plan to hold social media platforms accountable New York, NY, March 24, 2021… Asian-Americans experienced the largest single rise in severe online hate and harassment year-over-year in comparison to other groups, with 17 percent having experienced sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, swatting, doxing or sustained harassment this year compared to 11 percent last year, according to a new survey released today by ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). Fully…

March 23, 2021

Twitter Must De-Platform Iran’s Supreme Leader

Article

March 19, 2021 By David Andrew Weinberg Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the Supreme Leader of Iran and an active presence on various social media platforms in multiple languages. And although he uses these accounts to spread hatred, violence, and dangerous disinformation – let alone his calls to destroy the State of Israel – these platforms allow him to keep doing so in seeming violation of their own policies. This is in purported deference to his status as a political…

March 19, 2021

The Infrastructure of Hate: Epik Hosts Extremist Groups

Article

February 22, 2021 Social media platforms have received the lion’s share of attention for enabling users to spread hate and disinformation and plan and incite violence and terrorist acts. Flying under the radar are infrastructure providers like Epik, a domain registrar and web hosting company that works with nearly 750,000 websites and is ranked among the 50 largest web hosts. A domain is the address of a website you type into the URL bar of an internet browser. Domain registrars are…

February 22, 2021

Dangerous videos pushed on YouTube; Iranian textbooks more antisemitic than ever; Synagogue and Holocaust memorial vandalized

Article

February 12, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Google's YouTube is still recommending extremist and white supremacist videos to viewers already susceptible to racial hatred, a new report from ADL found. Iranian schools are teaching antisemitism, hatred and conspiratorial material in their textbooks, according to a comprehensive analysis by ADL. Police in Spokane, WA are looking for the person who painted swastikas on the Temple Beth Shalom building and a Holocaust memorial. Read on for more…

February 12, 2021

Despite Remediation Efforts, ADL Finds YouTube Still Amplifies Extremist Content

Press Release

New ADL Belfer Fellow survey shows white supremacist and other potentially harmful content is still recommended by YouTube New York, NY, February 12, 2021 … While YouTube has made efforts to remove extremist content, 9 percent of YouTube users who participated in a national study viewed at least one video from an extremist channel, and 22 percent viewed at least one video from an alternative channel that could serve as a gateway to extremist content, according to a new report from ADL …

February 11, 2021

ADL Supports Reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to Hold Tech Companies Accountable, Prioritize Users and Protect Civil Rights

Press Release

New York, NY, February 5, 2021 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) issued the following statement in response to the introduction of the “Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism, and Consumer Harms Act” or the SAFE TECH Act from Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and which proposes reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that would directly address tech platform involvement in discrimination,…

February 05, 2021

ADL & Moonshot Partnered to Reduce Extremist Violence During US Presidential Election, Redirected Thousands Towards Safer Content

Press Release

Searches included “Join Proud Boys,” “QAnon plan to save the world,” “how to make napalm” New York, New York, February 1, 2021— ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) and Moonshot today launched a joint report on their efforts to track and counter US election-related violence and disinformation from September to December 2020. ‘From Shitposting to Sedition: Tracking and countering conspiracy theories, disinformation and violence around the 2020 US…

February 01, 2021

ADL Gives Twitch High Marks for Efforts to Combat Holocaust Denial on Their Platform

Press Release

In new report card, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Roblox earn a “C” while Facebook barely passes with a “D” New York, NY, January 27, 2021 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today issued a report card grading each of the 10 major digital social platforms for their efforts to effectively address Holocaust denial content on their platforms. The assessment, released as the world commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day, found that Twitch is the most…

January 26, 2021

Doxing Should Be Illegal. Reporting Extremists Should Not.

Article

January 15, 2021 We live more and more in digital spaces, so we have to work harder to distinguish protected online speech from unprotected online conduct. In the wake of the attack at the U.S. Capitol on January 6—an attack that was planned, mobilized and livestreamed online—this work has gained an even greater sense of urgency, especially when it comes to doxing. Many people define doxing as posting someone’s personal information online. But doxing as a blanket…

January 15, 2021

How Platforms Can Stem Abuses of Livestreaming After the Storming of the Capitol

Article

January 15, 2021 A livestream video shot by a newly-elected West Virginia lawmaker shows a disturbing gap between what a mob of Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol thought about the events of January 6 and what the rest of the world actually saw. Derrick Evans, a freshman member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, viewed fellow rioters swarming around him and forcing entry into the Capitol as a celebration. He was visibly giddy. But for horror-struck viewers, it was a violent…

January 15, 2021

Open Letter to the U.S. Department of Justice: ADL Calls for a Criminal Investigation of Gab

News

January 13, 2021 The January 6 attack at our nation’s Capitol was deliberate and coordinated. Individuals who broke the law must be held accountable, but we cannot ignore that social media platforms, like Gab, may well bear a measure of criminal responsibility for the attack as well. To the extent Gab intentionally served as a forum for people to plan, coordinate, engage in or otherwise facilitate the criminal activity that took place on January 6, a Department of Justice investigation…

January 13, 2021

ADL Calls on U.S. Justice Department to Investigate Gab For Possible Criminal Liability in Capitol Attack

Press Release

Platform’s CEO encouraged rioters to broadcast their actions New York, NY, January 13, 2021 … The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) today called on the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to launch a criminal investigation into Gab and its CEO, Andrew Torba, to determine whether the social media platform intentionally aided or abetted individuals who carried out the January 6 attack on the nation’s Capitol. Gab continues to serve as a forum where white supremacists and…

January 12, 2021

NY Jewish high school’s website defaced with Neo-Nazi imagery; Driver shouted antisemitic slurs, ran over man at menorah lighting; Senate votes to upgrade antisemitism special envoy to ambassador status

Article

December 17, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The website of a Jewish high school in suburban New York was hacked and defaced with swastikas and antisemitic slurs. A member of a Chabad in Lexington was severely injured when a driver shouting antisemitic slurs dragged and ran over him outside the Jewish Student Center near the University of Kentucky. And the Senate passed a bipartisan bill by unanimous consent upgrading the status of the State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat…

December 17, 2020