April 11, 2022 Over a hundred million American adults read news on social media, but in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, antisemitism, hate speech, and disinformation have spread widely on Facebook. ADL researchers found evidence of the continued presence of problematic posts on the platform, the most popular site for getting news, as well as the prevalence of external links directing users to alternative platforms and sites popular among extremists. Roughly 61% of these posts included links…

February 02, 2022 Spotify is in hot water for its support of controversial podcaster Joe Rogan. In January 2022, a group of 270 medical professionals wrote an open letter to the company accusing Rogan of spreading misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic, calling him “a menace to public health.” Soon after, legendary rocker Neil Young demanded that the company either remove his music or stop airing the podcast because it promotes false information about Covid-19 vaccines. The…

December 01, 2021 UPDATE: As of December 9, 2021, Facebook has removed all nine posts reported on the platform in conjunction with our research.  October 2021 marked one year since Facebook banned Holocaust denial from its platform and officially classified Holocaust denial as hate speech instead of misinformation. On the first anniversary of this policy’s enactment on Facebook properties, analysts in ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) sought to determine whether the…

October 29, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 A third of Jewish college students say they have personally experienced antisemitism in the last year, according to a new survey conducted jointly by ADL and Hillel. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt blasted Facebook following the publication of a series of articles revealing the company's struggles to stop hate speech, human trafficking and coordinated groups that sowed discord ahead of the January 6 insurrection. Community leaders are rallying behind the…

October 15, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 International and Jewish community leaders gathered in Malmö, Sweden this week for a conference to combat antisemitism and advance Holocaust remembrance. Twitter is struggling to curtail COVID-19 misinformation and hate speech originating from the fringe social network Gab and migrating to find massive audiences on the platform, according to a new report released by ADL. A review of recently revealed membership rolls for the far-right group Oath…

September 27, 2021 The recent blockbuster series of five articles from The Wall Street Journal exposing Facebook’s complicity in spreading toxic content underscores that it is far past time to recognize the harm caused by Facebook. Yet the company and other social media platforms continue to enjoy free rein despite playing outsized and destabilizing roles in determining what content is served up to billions of individuals worldwide. The “Facebook Files” were based on…

August 06, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 ADL and Hillel International announced they are working together to play a stronger role in fighting antisemitism on campus. Antisemitic content is proving to be a persistent problem across social media as major platforms fail to protect Jewish targets, according to a new report that gives Facebook and many others low grades. ADL criticized remarks from US Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) as a problematic “dog whistle” when she alleged…

July 29, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3PayPal is partnering with ADL to investigate how extremist and hate movements in the U.S. take advantage of financial platforms to fund their criminal activities. A swastika was found carved into an elevator at the State Department, prompting President Biden to speak out. Unilever’s CEO wrote a letter to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in which they made clear the company will continue to do business in Israel despite its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s…

June 30, 2021 This blog post is the second in a series of three articles that will explore the unique challenges audio content moderation poses for platforms creating audio-focused digital spaces. The first article in this series focused on the choices around recording audio for the purpose of content moderation in audio only digital social spaces. This article will discuss how platforms can choose to review audio for content moderation. The third article will cover cautionary tales from…

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 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 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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The only Anne Frank memorial in the United States was vandalized Tuesday, a distressing display of hate that has prompted a police investigation. A report into last year's Christchurch mosque attack found that New Zealand security agencies were "almost exclusively" focused on the threat from Islamist terrorism, and police failed to enforce proper checks on firearm licenses. Facebook is embarking on a major overhaul of its algorithms that detect hate…