Americans’ Views on Generative Artificial Intelligence, Hate and Harassment
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Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) has dominated news headlines for its potential to transform how we work, write, and play. For example, OpenAI’s ChatGPT allows people to ask various questions, summarize a book or write a new song in the style of their favorite musical artist. AI-enhanced search tools return summaries of online content, rather than a list of links to different webpages. Other tools create realistic photos or pieces of artwork from a description. Some tools create…
Allen Gunman’s Writings Reveal a Disturbed, Hateful Man—But No Clear Motive
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On the afternoon of May 6, 2023, a gunman opened fire in a mall parking lot in the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas. The shooter killed eight people and wounded seven more before a police officer shot and killed him.
Authorities later identified the gunman as 33-year-old Mauricio Martinez Garcia. Unlike some other recent perpetrators of mass shootings, Garcia composed no manifesto or document explaining the reason for his violent spree. However, he did leave behind voluminous writings,…
Evaluating Twitter's Policies Six Months After Elon Musk's Purchase
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Policy and enforcement developments since Elon Musk acquisition of Twitter and what they mean for enforcement of hate speech policies and protecting users.
Shooter in Allen, Texas, Embraced Antisemitism, Misogyny and White Supremacy
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Preliminary research by the ADL Center on Extremism appears to show Mauricio Garcia, the suspect in the Allen, Texas, mass shooting, was obsessed with violence and subscribed to a range of extremist ideologies, including antisemitism, violent misogyny and white supremacy.
An initial assessment of a massive social media trove, which ADL researchers can link to Garcia with a high degree of confidence, reveals a preoccupation with violence that manifests in a wide range of hate, including…
2023 Quds Day Rallies Bring Antisemitism to the Fore
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Throughout the weekend of April 14th, 2023, multiple rallies across the U.S. celebrated the annual Quds Day, or “Jerusalem Day,” a display of anti-Israel activism originally conceived by the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Many of the events descended into antisemitism and support for violence/terror against Israel. In several instances, rally-goers and speakers called for Israel’s dissolution, venerated members of terror groups and…
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) 2023 Featured Expressions of Antisemitism
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Some activities across the U.S. marking the 17th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), which is a series of worldwide anti-Israel events spearheaded by the BDS Movement and rooted in antizionism and antisemitism, featured instances of overt antisemitism and expressions of support for violence against Israel. As is typically the case, anti-Zionist campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was the primary organizer of IAW, spearheading most of the approximately 16 apartheid walls and…
Recommitting to “Never Again”: Learning to Never Forget
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Despite the overwhelming evidence of the Holocaust, one of the most tragic events in human history, there are still those who deny its existence or distort the truth.
Anti-Zionism as Antisemitism: How Anti-Zionist Language from the Left and Right Vilifies Jews
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It is an unfortunate fact that seven decades after Israel’s founding, some criticism of the country continues to promote age-old antisemitic tropes. Even before Israel was founded, conversations about the Zionist movement and the creation of the State of Israel at times included explicit anti-Jewish animus or espoused ideas historically wielded against Jewish communities (e.g., the claim that a “cabal” is manipulating political affairs). Today, many anti-Zionist activists…
Antisemitism, False Information and Hate Speech Find a Home on Substack
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Substack, a subscription-based online newsletter platform for independent writers, continues to attract extremists and conspiracy theorists who routinely use the site to profit from spreading antisemitism, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.
Platforms with more lenient content moderation policies, like Substack, provide fertile ground for the spread of hateful rhetoric and false information – a known catalyst for offline harm and violence. For example, seemingly fringe…
2022 Anti-Israel Shareholder Activism Points to Broader Divestment Strategy
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Shareholders of publicly traded companies in the United States have long proposed resolutions to encourage more responsible corporate behavior. These can include demands to divest from certain funds or entities, uphold codes of conduct or make tangible commitments to improving business practices. This type of activism dates to the 1970s and is used by a range of organizations to garner support for their causes. Anti-Israel activists and investors with anti-weapons investment screens or anti…
Fuentes Delivers Antisemitic, “Christian Nationalist” Rant to Fellow White Supremacists
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As quickly as hotel security removed white supremacist Nick Fuentes from CPAC 2023, the Groyper found another receptive audience for his antisemitism and racism. The "Fuentes Rally" took place on March 4, 2023, at Marriott’s Residence Inn at the National Harbor in Maryland. Reporters were not allowed inside the event.
Although Fuentes and other Groypers bragged online that the event was at “venue capacity,” the hotel website indicates the capacity of their largest event…
Extremists Co-opt Norfolk Southern Train Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio
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In the aftermath of the February 3, 2023, freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, a range of misinformation and unfounded claims has emerged as extremists and conspiracy theorists leverage the event for their own political and ideological gain. This includes the white supremacist and virulently antisemitic National Justice Party (NJP), which has capitalized on the outrage and suspicions around the Norfolk incident to organize protests in Ohio and Georgia, promoting their…
Nerdeen Kiswani and Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine: What You Need to Know
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Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine (WOL) is a New York-based, radical anti-Israel organization founded in 2015 that routinely expresses support for violence against Israel and calls for the abolition of Zionism. Since Hamas’ brutal terror massacre across southern Israel on October 7, 2023, WOL and its co-founder and leader Nerdeen Kiswani have continued to share extreme anti-Zionist and antisemitic positions on social media and at anti-Israel protests as well as in…
Farrakhan Predicts Another Holocaust, Espouses Antisemitism and Bigotry in Saviours’ Day Speech
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The Nation of Islam (NOI) held its annual Saviours’ Day conference in Chicago the weekend of February 24–26, serving once again as a platform for vitriolic antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry.
Saviours’ Day 2023 marked the annual event’s return to a large-scale arena setting for the first time in three years; the NOI held smaller, semi-virtual conferences during the intervening pandemic-era years. NOI speakers injected familiar antisemitic and conspiratorial…
Social Media Election Policies: The Good, the Bad and the Misinformed
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False and misleading social media harms elections, undermines public trust, normalizes baseless challenges to elections, stokes harassment and incites violence.