Attackers take advantage of the fact that platforms are not equipped to quickly remove content; New “Backspace Hate” campaign will advocate for legislation to prevent online harassment New York, October 17, 2019 … Social media platform design enables online harassment, as trolls often carry out coordinated attacks on a target by leveraging key platform features, according to a new report released today by ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). Such features include the…
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September 19, 2019 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
ADL sent two of its most senior leaders to Capitol Hill this week to testify in front of Congress about the global threat of white supremacy and the proliferation of hate online. Police in Arapahoe County, Colorado are investigating a Snapchat image picturing three high school students with a caption using explicitly violent, anti-Semitic language. And after an outcry from ADL, the Women’s March voted to remove a board member with a long…
Remarks by George Selim, Senior Vice President for Programs, ADL September 18, 2019 Washington, D.C., September 18, 2019
My name is George Selim, I serve as the Senior Vice President of Programs at ADL, the Anti-Defamation League. For decades, ADL has fought against bigotry and anti-Semitism by exposing extremist groups and individuals who spread hate and incite violence. Today, ADL is the foremost nongovernmental authority on domestic terrorism, extremism, hate groups and hate…
September 09, 2019 New anti-Semitic trolling efforts have emerged on several online platforms in recent weeks, with users weaponizing lists of Jews by variously posting their images, personal information such as names, places of employment, and schools they attend, as well as links to the targets’ social media accounts.
Lists of Jews in any form on white supremacist platforms is alarming, especially given the ongoing threats of anti-Semitic violence and targeting of synagogues and…
Tech Industry Veteran to Lead ADL’s Efforts to Combat Online Hate and Harassment New York, August 26, 2019 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today announced that it has hired David L. Sifry to be Vice President, Center for Technology and Society (CTS). Sifry will bring decades of expertise to advancing ADL’s work combating hate and harassment online.
Sifry is an entrepreneur and technology executive who was most recently the vice president of revenue products at Reddit,…
August 15, 2019
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Update: As of September 4, 21 of the following channels remain active on YouTube.
An analysis by ADL’s Center on Extremism found that a…
August 07, 2019 A mass shooting by a white supremacist at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019, shocked Americans across the nation. The horrific attack left 22 people dead and even more injured. Shortly before the attack, alleged shooter Patrick Crusius is believed to have posted a manifesto on the website 8chan. The four-page screed was intended to provide a justification for his deadly spree.
It is not the first time a white supremacist killer has followed precisely this…
August 02, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3
A new report from ADL reveals extremist items, including those promoting white supremacy, are widely available for purchase on Amazon, despite the company’s terms of service against such products. The alleged gunman responsible for killing three at a California food festival promoted a book cited by white supremacists on social media shortly before opening fire. The NonProfit Times is out with their annual “Power and Influence Top 50,”…
July 29, 2019 Items and merchandise promoting right-wing extremist ideologies, including white supremacy and the anti-government militia movement, are still being offered for sale by various third-party sellers on Amazon, in apparent violation of the company’s own policies, according to a recent search of the retailing site by experts in ADL’s Center on Extremism.
Hateful books (including paradigmatic white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries) are easily accessible, usually…
Study finds marginalized groups targeted most; users also exposed to extremist ideologies New York, July 25, 2019 … Sixty-five percent of players have experienced severe harassment while playing games online, which includes physical threats, stalking and sustained harassment, while 74 percent of online multiplayer gamers have experienced some form of harassment, according to a first-of-its-kind survey released today by ADL’s (the Anti-Defamation League) Center on…
New York, NY, July 9, 2019 … ADL (Anti-Defamation League) issued the following statement regarding Instagram's announced design change to reduce harassment on their platform and improve the experience of targets of online hate and harassment:
"We welcome Instagram's new changes to address harassment on their platform. Putting the power to combat hate in the hands of users will make a tangible difference in the lives of both the targets and the perpetrators of online…
July 02, 2019 While Facebook is working with leading civil society organizations, including ADL, to address civil rights concerns on their platform, their latest report raises more questions than it answers about how Facebook intends to do this.
Many of the audit committee’s recommendations are not novel but, if implemented, would be valuable steps forward in addressing hate, harassment and radicalization on Facebook — such as blocking for targets of large-scale…
July 02, 2019 Even as mainstream social media companies are struggling to eliminate extremist content and users from their platforms, the opportunities of scale and reach provided by these platforms continue to be leveraged and weaponized by extremists. And as mainstream companies increase their content moderation efforts to clamp down on hate, extremists are migrating to other platforms.
White supremacists are relatively easy to find on mainstream sites like Facebook and Twitter, despite…
We're co-opting the online platforms that embolden extremists who fan the flames of bigotry and violent fantasies to stop them before they act. by: Jonathan Greenblatt | July 01, 2019 The Times of Israel From hateful speech on Stormfront and Gab to the harassment of rabbis walking down the street in Germany to recent deadly violence at houses of worship in Pittsburgh, Christchurch, and Poway, it is painfully clear how online radicalization truly endangers communities. There’s a bright…
June 28, 2019 Edition: June 27, 2019
THE WEEK’S BIG 3
White supremacists increased college campus recruiting efforts with more propaganda distributions for the third straight year. ADL and partners are teaming up in an initiative to help redirect those seeking extremist content on the internet to material that exposes the falsehoods of these hateful movements. In a victory for immigration advocates, the Supreme Court ruled the Trump Administration cannot, for now, include the…
June 27, 2019 By Grant R. Vousden-Dishington | Research Software Engineer, ADL's Center for Technology and Society
From the moment the attacker began live-streaming his lethal assault on the Al-Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch, New Zealand, the significance of social media in driving the conversation about the incident was inevitable. Despite local law enforcement alerting Facebook to the live broadcast of the attack on their platform, and rapid action taken by…
June 21, 2019
Recent incidents of white supremacist terrorist activity have prompted the public, researchers, and cyber hate and harassment experts to focus on smaller online message boards and forums like Gab and 8chan. These platforms rose to prominence by permitting any content to be posted, no matter how extreme, without consequence. In fact, they boast about being unhindered by content moderation niceties. A particularly worrying trend is the increasing reach and influence of these…
June 07, 2019 June 6, 2019
THE WEEK'S BIG 3
YouTube announces a new effort to remove extremist, white supremacist content from its platform, in what ADL called “an important step forward.” In an attempt to claim ‘prominent’ conservatives were being censored on social media platforms, a Fox News host cited an avowed anti-Semite as an example. Volkswagen is partnering with ADL to fund a new office in Berlin that will research and combat anti-Semitism throughout…
New York, NY, June 5, 2019 … ADL (Anti-Defamation League) issued the following statement regarding YouTube’s policy changes, announced today, to reduce extremist content, including white supremacy, conspiracy theories and Holocaust denialism:
"Online hate and extremism pose a significant threat -- weaponizing bigotry against marginalized communities, silencing voices through intimidation and acting as recruiting tools for hateful, fringe groups,” said Jonathan Greenblatt…
May 31, 2019 May 30, 2018
THE WEEK'S BIG 3
Jews in Germany were warned that wearing a kippah in public may be dangerous, due to a disturbing increase in anti-Semitic incidents. The Ku Klux Klan attempted to hold a rally in Dayton, Ohio over the weekend but failed spectacularly – being out numbered 600 to nine. Twitter is weighing whether banning white nationalists from their platform or allowing them to stay on and be debated is the proper approach in dealing with this issue.
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