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…

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 28, 2020 In early 2020, ADL published a profile about TruNews and its host and founder, Rick Wiles, detailing the fundamentalist Christian video streaming site’s consistent use of antisemitic, anti-Zionist, anti-LGBTQ+, Islamophobic rhetoric. That content remains readily available on Facebook, despite clearly violating the platform’s community standards. While TruNews has its own website showing its news segments, the organization also posts and livestreams content on…

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 23, 2020 Roy Den Hollander, the primary suspect in a July 19, 2020 fatal shooting at a federal judge’s New Jersey home, made no secret of the fact that he hated powerful women. The self-described “anti-feminist lawyer,” who died by apparent suicide hours after the attack which left Judge Esther Salas’ son dead and her husband in critical condition, built much of his career around objectifying and demeaning women, and holding up white men as the ultimate victims…

July 17, 2020 By: Andrew Srulevitch, Director of European Affairs Antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric marred this week’s presidential election in Poland. Incumbent President Andrzej Duda defeated Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, 51%-49%, for a second five-year term.  While the presidency is supposed to be non-partisan, the contest clearly pitted the nationalist populist Law and Justice party, which supported Duda, against the pro-European liberal supporters of Trzaskowski…

July 20, 2020 Incumbent President Andrzej Duda defeated Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, 51%-49%, for a second five-year term.  While the presidency is supposed to be non-partisan, the contest clearly pitted the nationalist populist Law and Justice party, which supported Duda, against the pro-European liberal supporters of Trzaskowski.  Duda was the early favorite, but the race tightened as election day neared.  In response, Duda’s campaign turned negative, including the…

July 15, 2020 Antisemitism has stained the speeches and statements of Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan for decades. This past July 4 was no different, as Farrakhan delivered an address replete with antisemitic lies and stereotypes, and calls for his listeners to speak out against Jews. His speech reverberated in the ensuing days among celebrities and garnered over a million views on social media. Louis Farrakhan may be the most popular antisemite in America, as his messages…

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 Image source: https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2020/07/07/day-of-rage-demands-no-annexation-of-palestinian-land/ Anti-Israel groups have held at least thirty-five rallies in cities across the U.S. since July 1, 2020, ostensibly to express their opposition to the potential annexation by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of parts of the West Bank, which had been expected to be announced as early as July 1. Although many of the protestors limited their…

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…

July 01, 2020 The Holocaust, the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews, and several million others, is one of history’s most painstakingly examined and well-documented genocides. Nevertheless, in the decades since World War II, a small group of antisemites have repeatedly attempted to cast doubt on the facts of the Holocaust as they pertain to its Jewish victims. They claim that Jews fabricated evidence of their own genocide in order to gain sympathy, extract…

June 22, 2020 For nearly two decades, rock music icon Roger Waters has been one of the most prominent and outspoken supporters of the BDS movement. He has refused to perform in Israel and urged fellow artists to follow suit, and has often used inflammatory rhetoric against the country. ADL has repeatedly called out Waters for his hateful rhetoric, dating back to an open 2013 letter suggesting that his anti-Israel views may be colored by antisemitism.     In a recent…

June 22, 2020 Facebook has been claiming that it is effectively addressing hate on its platforms. ADL and others, however, have continued to expose egregious examples of online hate, misinformation and extremism across the company’s products, particularly on Facebook and Instagram. Whether or not these posts technically violate Facebook’s complicated guidelines around hate speech, as a result of the platform’s casual placement of ads, paid advertisements run a risk of being…

June 19, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 ADL convened a coalition of civil rights groups encouraging corporate advertisers to pull spending from Facebook during the month of July to protest the company’s failure to make its platform a less-hostile place. The Supreme Court ruled that federal civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender workers from discrimination. School textbooks used in institutions controlled by the terror group Hezbollah are teaching children “egregious…