Antisemitism online directly increases real-world violence, study finds

Since the deadly attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7, there has been an increase in online antisemitism which is inciting real-world violence against Jews. 

According to Cyberwell, a live database that tracks online antisemitism, their AI monitoring technology flagged more than 50% the amount of antisemitic content between October 7 and October 24 than it usually flags in a typical month. 

Between September 19 and October 6, Cyberwell’s monitoring technology flagged 4,472 pieces of content that contained hatred towards Jews. Between October 7 and October 24, the amount of flagged content more than doubled to 9,044. 

On Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X, the number of posts including the keywords“Jews” and “Israel” significantly increased during the two weeks following the Hamas massacre. 

Other trending keywords included “Jew”, “money”, “TheNoticing”, “Jews killed Jesus”, “Jewish control”, “Synagogue of Satan”, “Zionist-Occupied government”, and “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

These trends coincided with an upswing in policy violations on social media platforms, such as hate speech, hateful conduct, violent speech, violent behaviors, violence and incitement, violent event denial, and more. 

As this hatred has spread across social media, real-world hate crimes against Jews and attacks on Jewish institutions have surged. 

Supporting violence against Jews 

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks, there was an outpouring of online support for the violent acts committed against Israeli civilians and security forces. 

In one example, a video showing the body of an Israeli soldier being stepped on was shared by a smiling social media user who celebrated the death of the soldier and the abuse of his body. The post received 21.9K views and was still online as of Oct 30, despite being reported to X.

In another post, a social media user identified Hamas by name and referred to the violent attack as a “remontada”, the Spanish word for “comeback”. “Remontada” is often used by sports fans when their team gets ahead after being behind and following the Oct. 7 attacks, some social media users began using this word to celebrate and glorify the violence. 

Inciting violence against Jews 

Online support for the Oct. 7 attacks went hand in hand with calls for additional violence. 

There were calls to “PUBG the Jews”, in reference to a shooting video game. The phrase originated in a religious sermon by Mahmoud al-Hasanat from 2020, in which he stated:

“They say this generation is the PUBG generation, right? But open the borders for them, and by God, they will make PUBG to the Jews.”

The sermon went viral following the Oct. 7 massacre, with users overlaying the voice clip with videos of Hamas paragliders, videos from the PUBG game with simulated shooting, and videos displaying weapons.

“I told you one day: ‘Try it and open the borders to them. They will make PUBG on the Jews.’ Today, what was done to the Jews…whoever made PUBG must learn from today. He must learn from Gaza’s heroes,” al-Hasanat, who has millions of followers, stated in another video. 

Another hashtag trend that originated from al-Hasanat’s sermon was “open the borders for us”. It refers to the breaking down of the border fence between Israel and Gaza by Hamas forces on October 7, and is a call for Muslims everywhere to join in the Palestinian uprising and the violent attacks against Jews. 

There was a 1,600% surge in the hashtag #HitlerWasRight in the weeks following the massacre. The hashtag tends to spike during major world events involving Jews or Israel. 

In Arabic, in the two weeks leading up to October 7, Cyberwell’s technology detected just 3 posts with the phrase, and in the weeks after the number of posts with the phrase increased by 29,000%.

Religious and classic antisemitism 

Violent chants and slogans such as  “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return” which refers to battles between the Muslim prophet Mohammad and the Jews in which the Jews were defeated, and “Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam”, a violent and antisemitic slogan popular with the Houthi religious group in Yemen, both saw an increase in use following the Hamas attacks. 

There was also an increase in posts repeating the age-old antisemitic claim that Jews killed Jesus. 

The IHRA definition of antisemitism includes: “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, CyberWell’s monitoring AI has detected a huge number of posts that include these antisemitic tropes. 

Dehumanizing content that refers to Jews as various animals, diseases, and parasites, conspiracy theories about Jews controlling global politics, and posts in Arabic positioning Jews as “the enemy” increased in the weeks after October 7. 

There was also a surge in the antisemitic hashtag #TheNoticing, which spikes during world events involving Jews or Israel just like the #HitlerWasRight hashtag. “The Noticing” is a call for the public to “wake up” to the “truth”…the truth in this case being the idea that Jewish people have infiltrated global leadership positions in order to achieve world domination. 

Denial of atrocities against Jews 

While there was a huge amount of online support for the violent October 7 massacre, there was an almost equal amount of denial that the attacks happened at all. 

There were numerous online posts that denied women had been raped by Hamas terrorists, denied that babies had been murdered by Hamas, and denied that 260 civilians had been murdered by Hamas at the Nova festival.

Despite the fact that Hamas themselves recorded their attacks and posted photos and videos of their violent acts on social media, there were also frequent claims that depictions of murdered Israeli civilians were actually the bodies of Hamas fighters. 

Real-world consequences of online hate

Online Jew-hatred has been rising for years and has reached a fever pitch following the Oct. 7 massacre.

Despite the Jewish community’s repeated attempts to bring attention to the problem, social media platforms have not done enough to crack down on hate and protect their users. 

The Hamas attacks sparked a chain reaction of online antisemitism which has led to a rise in global violence against the Jewish community. 

Learn more about Cyberwell and their fight against online antisemitism at cyberwell.org.