October 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Jewish members of Congress are facing antisemitic attacks on Twitter in the lead-up to the November election, according to a new report from ADL. Facebook said it is escalating the campaign against QAnon, pledging to remove any Facebook pages, groups and Instagram accounts aligned with the conspiracy group. The FBI says it thwarted what it described as a plot to violently overthrow the government and kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Read on…

October 08, 2020 Update: October 13, 2020: Militia members charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also discussed kidnapping Virginia’s governor during a June meeting in Ohio, according to an FBI agent's testimony.  “They discussed possible targets, taking a sitting governor, specifically issues with the governor of Michigan and Virginia based on the lockdown orders,” the agent told a Michigan courtroom.   On October…

October 02, 2020 Leila Khaled is a longtime active leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and is well-known for her role in the hijacking of two civilian airliners, TWA Flight 840 in 1969 (bound for Tel Aviv from Rome) and El Al flight 219 in 1970 (traveling from Amsterdam to New York City). In 1997, PFLP was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States Department of State, which cites the group as having carried out “large-scale…

September 24, 2020 While extremists of differing ideologies aligning to further a common goal is not a new phenomenon, recent activity suggests that this overlap is becoming more common as extremist ideas are shared online. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) September 3, 2020 arrest of 30-year-old Michael Robert Solomon and 22-year-old Benjamin Ryan Teeter in Minneapolis is the most recent example of a hybrid ideology. To support their alleged violent goals of destroying the U.S…

September 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Top officials with the Department of Homeland Security directed agency analysts to downplay threats from violent white supremacy, a whistle-blower complaint released on Wednesday said. Vice President Mike Pence and top officials from the Trump campaign are slated to attend a Montana fundraiser next week hosted by a couple who have expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. A Palestinian woman who played a part in the hijackings of two…

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…

August 28, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Federal investigators announced that they have launched a civil rights probe into the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A sign with the phrase “The Jews Want A Race War” was hung from the heavily trafficked Los Angeles interstate 405 highway overpass on Saturday. The NAACP will replace all leadership of its Philadelphia chapter — including its president, Minister Rodney Muhammad —…

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 20, 2020 By David Andrew Weinberg Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced a historic agreement on August 13th to move toward full normalization of relations, the first such accord between the State of Israel and an Arab state since 1994.  However, peace always has its opponents, and this agreement is no exception. Whenever Israel and Arab governments take important steps to engage and reconcile with each other, extremists throughout the region routinely demonize both…

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 Anti-Israel organizations held demonstrations in at least eight cities across the country, August 7 through 9, 2020. Protests were organized following the call of transnational anti-Israel group Samidoun for Days of Resistance, designated as a time to engage in demonstrations and related activity as a follow-up to July’s Day of Rage anti-Israel protests that were more focused on Israel’s potential annexation of parts of the West Bank. While most of the rhetoric…

August 14, 2020 Anti-Israel organizations held demonstrations in at least eight cities across the country, August 7 through 9, 2020. Protests were organized following the call of transnational anti-Israel group Samidoun for Days of Resistance, designated as a time to engage in demonstrations and related activity as a follow-up to July’s Day of Rage anti-Israel protests that were more focused on Israel’s potential annexation of parts of the West Bank. While most of the rhetoric…

August 13, 2020 As Facebook continues to grapple with hate speech and violent extremism across the platform, QAnon conspiracy theorists are using public and private Facebook pages and groups to spread disinformation, racism, and thinly veiled incitement to violence. QAnon, the wide-reaching conspiracy theory popular among a range of right-wing extremists and supporters of President Trump, follows an anonymous personality “Q.” Followers of Q believe a pedophiliac global elite…

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…