Research & Analysis

The fight against hate never rests. Get the latest up-to-date analysis on current events
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102 Results

Anne Frank memorial defaced; Christchurch attach report says New Zealand police failed to enforce firearm license checks; Facebook to start aggressively policing anti-Black hate speech

Article

December 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The only Anne Frank memorial in the United States was vandalized Tuesday, a distressing display of hate that has prompted a police investigation. A report into last year's Christchurch mosque attack found that New Zealand security agencies were "almost exclusively" focused on the threat from Islamist terrorism, and police failed to enforce proper checks on firearm licenses. Facebook is embarking on a major overhaul of its algorithms that detect hate…

December 11, 2020

Extremists Maintain Significant Presence on Facebook

Article

November 17, 2020 Facebook has been vocal about its recent efforts to suspend and ban hateful, conspiratorial and violent content from its platform. And yet a great deal of extremist content remains. As of November 16, 2020, even a cursory search of Facebook brings up white supremacist, racist and antisemitic pages. The following is a sampling of extremist groups and individuals currently active on Facebook. Antisemites and Holocaust Deniers: TruNews is a fundamentalist…

November 17, 2020

Jonathan Greenblatt's Opening Remarks at ADL's 2020 Never Is Now Summit on Antisemitism and Hate

News

Remarks by Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO November 09, 2020 Thank you all for tuning in today for the 5th annual Never is Now conference. There is so much to discuss, but before we get started, I want to pause and remember Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks who left us too soon this weekend. He was an extraordinary leader, a remarkable rabbi, a gifted scholar and a beautiful man. He will be missed. May his memory always be for a blessing. We gather today -- virtually -- at what feels like the start…

November 09, 2020

Facebook bans Holocaust denial posts; NYC Jewish man berated for not wearing mask on empty street; YouTube cracks down on QAnon conspiracy theory

Article

October 16, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 After years of urging from ADL and other civil rights organizations, Facebook will ban posts that deny the Holocaust. A video has gone viral on social media of a man shouting at a Hasidic Jewish man for not wearing a mask on an empty New York City street. YouTube on Thursday became the latest social media giant to take steps to stop QAnon, the sprawling right-wing conspiracy theory community whose online fantasies about a cabal of satanic pedophiles…

October 16, 2020

After Long Fight, ADL is Relieved at Facebook Announcement That It Will Remove Holocaust Denial Content

Press Release

New York, NY, October 12, 2020 ... ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) is relieved by Facebook’s announcement that it was updating its hate speech policy to prohibit any content “that denies or distorts the Holocaust.” This comes after nearly a decade of ADL advocating for such changes and just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, where users have been using the platform to perpetuate hate and conspiracy theories at alarming rates. Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO,…

October 12, 2020

Jewish lawmakers face ‘alarming’ antisemitic tweets; Facebook will ban groups that support QAnon; Feds thwart militia plot to kidnap Michigan governor

Article

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 11, 2020

ADL Welcomes YouTube Banning Extremist Channels, Including Nation of Islam

Press Release

New York, NY, October 8, 2020 …ADL (Anti-Defamation League) today welcomed YouTube’s banning some extremist content, including white supremacists and the official channel of the stridently antisemitic Nation of Islam (NOI), led by Louis Farrakhan. “For decades, Louis Farrakhan and many of his followers have been preaching vitriol and antisemitism, and in recent years they’ve found a wider audience on platforms like YouTube,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL…

October 09, 2020

New Report Finds “Deluge” of Antisemitic Tweets Directed at Jewish Members of Congress as 2020 Campaign Heats Up

Press Release

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…

October 05, 2020

FBI tweets link to antisemitic text; President Trump refuses to condemn QAnon; Holocaust-denial still not recognized as hate speech by Facebook

Article

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

The FBI “Shared” Antisemitic Protocols on Twitter

News

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 19, 2020

Israel and UAE strike major agreement; Facebook bans blackface and antisemitic conspiracy theories; Jewish groups condemn Marjorie Greene

Article

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 14, 2020

Extremists are Using a Range of Techniques to Exploit TikTok

Article

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 13, 2020

State attorneys general say Facebook must better police online hate; White supremacist leader arrested in Texas; Coronavirus causes global rise in antisemitism

Article

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 07, 2020

Civil Rights Groups Disappointed After Facebook Meeting; NFL Player Apologizes for Antisemitic Instagram Posts

Article

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 10, 2020

#StopHateForProfit Reacts to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg's Townhall Address

Letter

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…

June 26, 2020

More Than One-Quarter of Americans Experience Severe Online Harassment, ADL Survey Finds

Press Release

Survey shows members of marginalized groups experience more hate New York,June 23, 2020… Twenty-eight percent of Americans experienced severe online hate and harassment this year, including sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, swatting, doxing or sustained harassment, according to a new survey released today by ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). Individuals who are part of a marginalized group also reported being less safe online this year than in the past: On the whole,…

June 22, 2020

Hate, Conspiracy Theories and Advertising on Facebook

Article

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 22, 2020

Stay-At-Home Protests Draw Extremists; Hate on Steam Gaming Platform; California Grocery Shopper Wears Klan Hood

Article

May 08, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Antisemitic signs and imagery are seen at anti-quarantine rallies across the country, including in Chicago, where a protester held up a sign with a Nazi slogan that appeared on the gates of Auschwitz. A new report outlines the failures of Steam to adequately address the prevalence of extremists and neo-Nazis on the gaming platform. And in California, a man was seen donning a Ku Klux Klan hood as he shopped for groceries. Read on for more on these…

May 08, 2020

What is "Zoombombing" and Who is Behind It?

Article

May 04, 2020 On March 24, 2020, a white supremacist interrupted a webinar about antisemitism hosted by a Massachusetts Jewish student group by pulling his shirt collar down to reveal a swastika tattoo on his chest. A day later, a similar incident occurred in California when someone disrupted an online class hosted by a JCC (Jewish Community Center); the perpetrator launched into a minutes-long, profanity-laced, antisemitic rant and removed his shirt to display a swastika tattoo on his chest…

May 04, 2020

ADL Receives $1 Million Grant from Craig Newmark Philanthropies to Detect and Measure Online Hate Speech

Press Release

New York, NY, April 29, 2020 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) has received a generous $1 million grant from Craig Newmark Philanthropies to help support ADL’s work to detect, expose and counter online hate speech. The two-year grant will directly support the work of ADL’s Center on Technology and Society, including the Online Hate Index, while also helping to bolster the organization’s overall activities during the COVID-19 crisis. The Online Hate Index…

April 29, 2020