New York, October 6, 2020 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) CEO and National Director Jonathan A. Greenblatt issued the following statement regarding Facebook’s decision to ban QAnon content from its platform:
Facebook’s decision to ban QAnon from all its platforms is a much needed, if belated, step to purge dangerous conspiracy theories from the platform. QAnon is an extremist movement that fuels antisemitism and promotes misinformation and hate in an…
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One-month snapshot reveals Rep. Nadler and Sen. Schumer disproportionally targeted by antisemitic tweets New York, October 6, 2020 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today released a new study finding a high volume of antisemitic tropes and misinformation on Twitter directed at incumbent Jewish members of Congress who are running for re-election.
For the study, ADL’s Center for Technology and Society collected and analyzed all tweets across a single month that were…
September 21, 2020 September 22— National Voter Registration Day — is a nonpartisan civic holiday that celebrates the cornerstone of our democracy, the vote, by creating broad awareness of voter registration opportunities. In addition to providing information about voter registration and other resources, the day is an appropriate occasion to underscore that the success of the American democratic experiment relies, at its core, on the rule of law and the right to vote. …
Dozens of influencers expected to join 24-Hour Instagram “Freeze” on Wednesday New York, NY, September 15, 2020 ... Nearly two dozen A-list Hollywood celebrities have signed on to the call by Stop Hate for Profit, a coalition of civil rights organizations and advocacy groups, that was issued yesterday, asking a one-day moratorium from posting on Instagram in protest of Facebook’s repeated failures to address hate speech and election disinformation on their platforms.
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Week of Action Includes a 24-Hour Instagram “Freeze” and Culminates with Call to Protect Our Democracy New York, NY, September 14, 2020 ... Members of the Stop Hate for Profit coalition and its network of thousands of supporters across the country will be joining in a coordinated week of action on Instagram this week, demanding parent company Facebook take action to address racism, hate, and disinformation on its platforms.
The actions include a one-day freeze on Instagram…
The Texas attorney general filed suit to stop Harris County from mailing ballot applications to all of its eligible voters. Groups join in defense of voters against this voter suppression. Houston, TX, September 8, 2020 ... The Texas State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) and the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL's) Southwest Region filed a petition in intervention in State of Texas v. Chris Hollins, a lawsuit…
Table Talk: Family Conversations about Current EventsIn its simplest terms, voting is an act of expressing your opinion. Whether you participate in a poll, take an online survey or vote in the Presidential election, you are expressing an opinion or point of view with your vote. Merriam Webster defines voting as “to express one's views in response to a poll” or “to express an opinion.” In political elections, people vote for a variety of offices and laws. This includes…
August 31, 2020 Under the guise of anti-censorship and free speech, video-hosting service BitChute has become a hotbed for violent, conspiratorial and hate-filled video propaganda, and a recruiting ground for extremists.
BitChute founder Ray Vahey’s concept for the platform came from, in his words, “seeing the increased levels of censorship by the large social media platforms in the last couple of years. Bannings, demonetization, and tweaking algorithms to send…
Philadelphia, PA, August 31, 2020 ... ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) and the National Urban League today announced a new partnership bringing together two venerable civil rights organizations in service of building stronger relations between the African American and American Jewish communities and to advocate around issues of mutual concern.
“Partnering with the ADL at this moment builds on our shared past and creates the pathway forward,” said Marc Morial, President…
August 20, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
An FBI Twitter account tweeted out a link to a PDF containing the antisemitic “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” as well as FBI documents related to it, with no other context. President Trump on Wednesday offered encouragement to proponents of QAnon, a viral and dangerous conspiracy theory. According to a new study, Facebook “actively promotes further Holocaust-denial content to that user” and “has been unwilling…
August 19, 2020 On August 19, one of the FBI’s official twitter handles, the FBI Records Vault, disseminated a link labeled “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” There has been widespread confusion about the FBI’s motives for doing this, and concern that in doing so the FBI is spreading an antisemitic text. The Protocols is a notorious antisemitic forgery created at the turn of the 20th century by the Czarist secret police and describes an alleged secret plan of…
August 17, 2020 This week marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Congress passing and the states ratifying the 19th Amendment, officially giving the right to vote to all citizens of the United States regardless of gender. This amendment finally granted the right to vote to one of the last remaining populations of non-voters: women. After years of fighting, it appeared as though the suffragists achieved what they had been demanding since the first women’s suffrage convention in Seneca…
August 14, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
Israel struck an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to establish “full normalization of relations” even as it forgoes for now plans to annex occupied West Bank territory in order to focus on improving its ties with the rest of the Arab world. Facebook will start banning posts that contain blackface or that promote antisemitic conspiracy theories that Jewish people are running the world. A Georgia congressional candidate, who has a…
August 13, 2020 Extremists are constantly adapting and finding creative ways to reach new audiences – and new ways to evade content moderators. Their latest efforts are evident on TikTok, the Chinese social media app that allows users to create and share short videos. In less than four years, TikTok has racked up more than 800 million users, and its popularity is fast approaching that of social media giants like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram Each TikTok video has the…
August 07, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
Twenty state attorneys general called on Facebook to better prevent messages of hate, bias and disinformation from spreading, and said the company needed to provide more help to users facing online abuse. The leader of a white supremacist group was arrested in Weatherford, Texas on Saturday after police said he and two other men placed stickers on county property. And the global Jewish community continues to face rising antisemitism due to the…
August 03, 2020 Facebook Groups play a key role on the Facebook platform. Groups are essentially discussion forums organized around an endless number of possible subjects, allowing individuals to pursue their interests and communicate around shared interests. Groups can be public (posts are visible to all Facebook users) or private (individuals must be approved by the group administrator to join and see the posts).
Despite public announcements of efforts to curb hateful speech and…
July 24, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
The civil rights groups behind the month-long advertising ad pause of Facebook turned up public pressure with the release of an animated “Dear Mark” video. Almost three years after a conspiracy theory known as QAnon began spreading on dark corners of the internet, Twitter announced that it had removed thousands of accounts linked to the movement. And celebrating the life and legacy of civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis.
Read…
July 13, 2020 What do extremists do when a major social media site starts to deplatform them? While some migrate to less restrictive platforms, others adopt camouflage techniques so they can continue to operate on their platform of choice, hiding in plain sight through name changes and coded phrases.
The new anti-government extremist "boogaloo" movement took the latter approach when, on June 30, Facebook announced it had banned hundreds of groups and pages associated with…
July 10, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
Civil rights leaders came out of a meeting Tuesday with Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg saying they didn’t make progress on #StopHateforProfit’s demands over how the social media giant polices the platform for hate and misinformation. Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson apologized for a series of antisemitic Instagram posts, one of which included a quote about Jews falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler. A county chairman in…
June 26, 2020 On June 17th, we asked companies to act against hate and disinformation being spread by Facebook in our campaign Stop Hate for Profit. We asked advertisers to temporarily pause advertising on Facebook and Instagram in order to force Mark Zuckerberg to address the catastrophic effect that Facebook has had on our society.
Companies have responded in waves. Unilever, Verizon, Patagonia, Ben and Jerry’s, North Face, Eileen Fisher, Viber and the list goes on and…