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…
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March 25, 2021 UPDATE: According to the TruNews website, the channel was banned from Facebook on April 3, 2021, and the TruNews page has been removed from the platform.
In early 2020, ADL wrote about TruNews and its host and founder, Rick Wiles, detailing the fundamentalist Christian video streaming site’s consistently antisemitic, anti-Zionist, anti-LGBTQ+ and Islamophobic rhetoric. In July 2020, a follow-up piece focused on TruNews’ use of…
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 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 09, 2021 Extremist movements pose many problems to society, from spreading hate and intolerance to engaging in significant and deadly violence. It is particularly problematic when adherents of extreme causes are able to persist in key institutions dedicated to protecting the people of the United States, institutions such as emergency response units, law enforcement and the military.
Of these institutions, the U.S. military is the largest, with more than two million active duty…
March 05, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
U.S. House leaders canceled Thursday’s legislative session and rescheduled morning votes after police officials warned of a possible plot by a militia group to storm Capitol Hill. A suspect ADL identified as an alleged white supremacist was arrested after the FBI raided the Florida home he was renting after moving from New Jersey. Jewish groups called for an investigation into allegations that a Frontier Airlines flight crew made antisemitic…
February 26, 2021 Young Pharaoh, whose real name is Marshall Daniels, is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist who promotes racist theories about the superiority of Black people. He has also touted QAnon conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate and Frazzledrip (which accuses high profile Democrats of cutting a child’s face off and wearing it like a mask in a Satanic ritual) and uses popular QAnon hashtags. In 2021, he was invited and then disinvited from speaking at the annual CPAC…
February 26, 2021 As of February 25, 2021, more than 30 virtual events celebrating Black History Month have been disrupted by racist Zoombombing attacks. Zoombombing first gained attention nearly a year ago, during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as extremists and anonymous online trolls took advantage of the new reliance on virtual conferencing technology by disrupting a wide range of events, often targeting marginalized communities.
In this most recent spate of virtual…
February 22, 2021 On February 5, 2021, the FBI arrested Christian Michael Mackey, an alleged member of neo-Nazi group Iron Youth, on charges of an unlawful sale of a firearm. Mackey allegedly attempted to sell his gun to someone identified to him as a known felon, but Mackey seemed primarily concerned that the buyer was “based”— which in this case means that he subscribes to white supremacist beliefs.
According to the affidavit, Mackey allegedly incited others in an…
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 19, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3
Authorities in Poland, Russia, Hungary and some lawmakers in Britain’s Labour Party used antisemitism for political means, according to a new ADL report. ADL has positively identified 212 of the estimated 800 individuals who are believed to have breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, revealing a wide array of domestic extremists were among those who unleashed their fury on legislators and Capitol police, leading to five deaths and scores of…
February 17, 2021 It’s been more than a month since a horde of extremists forced their way into the U.S. Capitol, protesting the outcome of a national election and intent on disrupting a time-honored democratic process. At least five people died during the violent attack, including one Capitol Police officer.
ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) has identified 212 of the roughly 800 individuals who are believed to have breached the building on January 6. The emerging snapshot…
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…
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 …
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 01, 2021 Users across social media platforms evoked antisemitism during and in the wake of the GameStop incident that took place at the end of January 2021. (photo source: Twitter)
During the final week of January 2021, beleaguered retailer GameStop’s stock was driven to astronomical new highs when posters on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit launched a buying frenzy -- ostensibly aimed at soaking the Wall Street hedge funds that had shorted the stock for profit.
As the…
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…
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 22, 2021 Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren/AP Photo
Less than one week after President Biden’s inauguration, followers of QAnon—the sprawling, largely incoherent conspiracy theory that has infected not only American discourse but corners of the Republican Party—are struggling to hold onto the conspiracy theory in a post-Trump world.
QAnon is tightly tethered to the existence of a Trump presidency, as it cast the former president as the ultimate hero who would use…
January 21, 2021 QAnon is a nebulous and wide-ranging conspiracy theory that encompasses a host of other conspiracy theories. It has spread from the backwaters of the internet onto mainstream platforms where it has built a substantial following among mainstream Republicans and other supporters of former President Trump. Since the inauguration of President Biden, adherents have been scrambling for purpose and direction.
It can be challenging to keep track of a conspiracy theory as…