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Research & Analysis

The fight against hate never rests. Get the latest up-to-date analysis on current events 
related to our work battling hate and extremism.

106 Results

How Meta's Content Moderation Practices Risk Turning Instagram into a Hub for Hate

Report
Cover Image: How Meta's Content Moderation Practices Risk Turning Instagram into a Hub for Hate
  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video to Facebook in January 2025 announcing dramatic changes to the company’s content moderation policies. In the clip, the 40-year-old executive shared his commitment to restoring free expression and to making sure that “people can share their beliefs and experiences” on Meta platforms. In reality, our research has shown that these policy changes have resulted in a dramatic increase of antisemitism and extremism on Meta’s…
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Hate is No Game: Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games 2021

Report
Hate is No Game
Ninety-seven million Americans play online multiplayer games. While virtually all players surveyed in ADL’s third annual report on experiences1 in online games appreciated the social connectivity of gaming, an alarmingly large majority continue to encounter a firehose of hate and harassment. ADL’s survey explores the social interactions, experiences, attitudes, and behaviors of online multiplayer gamers nationwide. This year’s survey again asked about the experiences of a…
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Free to Play? Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experience in Online Games 2020

Report
free to play?
Video games have been popular in the United States for at least three decades, but the lockdowns and quarantines brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic kicked their growth as vital social spaces into overdrive.1 [i] Over 200 million people, 64 percent of American adults, regularly play video games- which include both online and offline games.[ii] A $159 billion industry, annual revenue from video games increased 9.3 percent this year, whereas revenue reported by traditional media such as movies…
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Computational Propaganda and the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election: Antisemitic and Anti-Black Content on Facebook and Telegram

Report
Computational Propaganda
By Mark Kumleben and Samuel Woolley  Propaganda Research Team Center for Media Engagement University of Texas at Austin Maggie Engler Global Disinformation Index Much of online speech today occurs on social media platforms like Facebook where a few companies have attained an outsized influence on what is permitted discussion on the internet. The rules and enforcement of the rules around speech on social platforms have far-reaching societal implications -- they can determine…
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Free to Play? Hate, Harassment, and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games

Report
Free to play?
Executive Summary This report explores the social interactions and experiences of video game players across America and details their attitudes and behaviors in a rapidly growing social space. Globally, video games are a $152 billion industry. Fifty-three percent of the total population of the US and 64 percent of the online population of the US plays video games.1 Video games have functioned as social platforms over the past three decades, with players around the world interacting with…
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Gab and 8chan: Home to Terrorist Plots Hiding in Plain Sight

Report
The second in a series of reports co-authored by the Network Contagion Research Institute and ADL’s Center on Extremism New analysis of online behavior suggests similar ideological motivations and radicalization methods when comparing the perpetrators of the Pittsburgh and Christchurch massacres.  Both killers announced in their preferred internet forums that they were about to commit violence and seemed to identify their fellow forum participants as community members who might…
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After Engaging with JLens and ADL, EA and Take-Two Make Policy Updates to Combat Extremism in Online Games

Press Release
New York, NY, July 21, 2025 … The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) Center for Technology and Society (CTS) and JLens, an ADL affiliate, announced today that Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) and Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), two of the world’s most prominent video game publishers, have made significant strides in strengthening their community standards by adopting updated policies explicitly addressing extremism and terrorism. These changes follow a series of engagements with JLens…
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“Create Just Worlds": Can We Break Extremism's Hold on Gaming?

Podcast
 Episode 4.5: “Create Just Worlds": Can We Break Extremism's Hold on Gaming?Video games are supposed to be fun and provide players with safe, supportive communities. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, extremists are ruining gaming for everyone. On this month’s episode of extremely, Oren Segal and Jessica Reaves talk to Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, Policy Advisor on technology and law at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Rosenblat studies the societal impact of…
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Millions of Examples of Extremist and Antisemitic Content Found on Steam, New Platform-Wide ADL Analysis Finds

Press Release
New York, NY, November 14, 2024, …  More than 1.8 million unique pieces of extremist or hateful content, including explicitly antisemitic, neo-Nazi and Islamist terrorist material, were identified on Steam, the world’s largest and most popular online gaming marketplace, new research from ADL (Anti-Defamation League) finds. In an unprecedented platform-wide capture of all publicly available profiles, groups and comments (as of July 2024), the ADL Center on Extremism (COE)…
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Repeat Liars: Falsehoods Around Buffalo Shooting and the 2020 Election

Article
Whether it is about a global pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the latest mass shooting, lies continue to thrive on social media platforms. According to a 2021 poll by the Pew Research Center, nearly half of Americans get their news from social media. While many people feel confident in their media literacy, YouGov found that only 4% of those surveyed could correctly distinguish false news stories from true ones. In order to assess platforms…
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Deplatform Tucker Carlson and the "Great Replacement" Theory

Article
In the wake of the horrific racist massacre in Buffalo, NY, Stop Hate for Profit is calling on mainstream social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Discord, and Reddit to immediately stop the spread of hateful white supremacist rhetoric that has incited acts of violence by permanently banning repeat perpetrators like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and others from their platforms and enforcing their own hate speech policies with regard to the Great Replacement theory and white supremacy. This article describes the forms that the Great Replacement Theory takes on these platforms and the platform policies they are violating.
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Social Media Companies Frequently Fail to Flag White Supremacist Discussions of Jewish Power and White Genocide, ADL Finds

Press Release
New ADL Belfer Fellow analysis shows extremists can dodge basic social media filters by not using profanity New York, NY, January 6, 2022 … Social media content moderation efforts regularly fall short when it comes to detecting white supremacist speech, including discussions of conspiracy theories related to white genocide, Jewish power and malicious grievances toward Jews and people of color, according to a new report from ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). “This important…
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One Year After Ban, Holocaust Denial Remains on Facebook

Article
Holocaust denial on Facebook
December 01, 2021 UPDATE: As of December 9, 2021, Facebook has removed all nine posts reported on the platform in conjunction with our research.  October 2021 marked one year since Facebook banned Holocaust denial from its platform and officially classified Holocaust denial as hate speech instead of misinformation. On the first anniversary of this policy’s enactment on Facebook properties, analysts in ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) sought to determine whether the…
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What Will Finally Be the Tipping Point Against Facebook?

Article
What Will Finally Be the Tipping Point Against Facebook?
September 27, 2021 The recent blockbuster series of five articles from The Wall Street Journal exposing Facebook’s complicity in spreading toxic content underscores that it is far past time to recognize the harm caused by Facebook. Yet the company and other social media platforms continue to enjoy free rein despite playing outsized and destabilizing roles in determining what content is served up to billions of individuals worldwide. The “Facebook Files” were based on…
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ADL Letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Terrorist Groups Exploiting Platform

Letter
August 25, 2021 In a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, ADL raised concern about a gap in Twitter’s enforcement of its stated policies toward accounts linked to U.S.-designated terrorist groups. August 24, 2021 Jack Dorsey Chief Executive Officer Twitter 355 Market Street, Suite 900 San Francisco, CA 94103 Dear Mr. Dorsey, I write to you today to raise concern about a gap in Twitter’s enforcement of its stated policies toward accounts linked to U.S…
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ADL Calls on Twitter and Other Platforms to Remove Taliban and Taliban-Affiliated Accounts

Press Release
New York, NY, August 19, 2021 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today called on Twitter, and other major social media platforms, to take immediate action to remove accounts affiliated with the Taliban given the organization’s long history of terrorist activity, violence and discrimination toward girls and women, assassinating journalists, and persecuting religious and ethnic minorities, in Afghanistan. The Taliban recently seized the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, and have gained…
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Moonshot & ADL Project Finds Anti-Black, Antisemitic, White Supremacist Internet Searches Peaked in Conjunction with Major Offline Events

Press Release
Elevated discriminatory traffic observed around Black Lives Matter protests, 2020 Election, January 6 Insurrection New York, NY, June 16, 2021 — Anti-Black, antisemitic and white supremacist searches spiked online as major offline events such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and the 2020 presidential election unfolded, according to a Moonshot and ADL joint report released today as part of an effort to understand how Americans search for white supremacist narratives and content. …
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