Following action from Campaign Against Antisemitism, a popular app allowing people to design their own graphics has removed an antisemitic meme from its platform.

The “Happy Merchant” meme, also known as the “Smirking Merchant”, is believed to have been created in 2001 and depicts a Jewish man with heavily stereotyped facial features who is greedily rubbing his hands together. The image has become widely used online by white supremacists and antisemites.

The Art Lab app, which has over 100,000 downloads on Google Play, is branded as “a versatile free graphic design app,” with its website stating: “Art Lab makes photo & design editing amazingly simple and fun. Design everything you need quickly and effortlessly. Design posters and banners for social media marketing, Instagram story & highlight cover, logos, business cards, birthday invitations & wedding invites.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The antisemitic ‘Happy Merchant’ meme is often used by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Such repugnant imagery has no place on an app like this. We understand that the owners of the Art Lab app were unaware of the graphic’s presence on its platform, and we commend them for their swift and decisive action to remove the image as soon as we brought it to their attention.”

T-shirts featuring the meme have reportedly been sold by Jon Minadeo II, the founder of the Goyim Defence League (GDL). The GDL has been described as an antisemitic hate group whose membership reportedly contains several neo-Nazis. The group is divided into regional branches and regularly distributes antisemitic flyers across the United States. 

Last year, a former Belfast City Councillor posted the well-known antisemitic meme on Gab, a platform favoured by the far-right.

Wikipedia has banned three editors from writing articles on Poland during World War II after it was discovered that articles were being written which apparently absolve Poland of its role in the Holocaust. 

The investigation was launched by Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee after an academic study concluded that the editors in question had propagated misinformation by denying that Polish people contributed to the experience of Jews in the Holocaust. 

The Committee concluded that the editors had breached the community’s code of conduct, yet reportedly refused to comment on the dispute over Poles’ collaboration with the Nazis. 

Controversy over Poland’s role in the Holocaust has recently flared-up again following comments made by Israeli Eurovision finalist Noa Kirel.

Ms Kirel told Israeli media: “Receiving twelve points from Poland after what our people and my family have been through in the Holocaust, it’s a true victory.”

Pawel Jablonski, Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister, denounced the comment and denied the implication of Poland’s participation in the Holocaust, an accusation which was made a criminal offence in Poland in 2018.

While Poles fought the Nazis and many helped to save Jews, much of the population either actively collaborated with the German-led genocide of the Jewish people or stood by as it took place predominantly on Polish soil during the Nazi occupation.

Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism throughout Europe.

Spotify has removed songs said to have contained incendiary lyrics about Jews and Israel. 

The JC described the songs as “violent extremist antisemitic content”.

It was reported that in one song titled Udrub Udrub Tel Abib (We Will Strike a Blow at Tel Aviv), the lyrics included: “Strike a blow at Tel Aviv and frighten the Zionists. The more you build it the more we will destroy it”, “Oh you settler, with your sidelocks, in your shelter you cower with fear”, and “Strike, oh Qassam missile, do not let the Zionists sleep. Even if they beg for mercy – be sure not to show Tel Aviv any mercy”.

Spotify were said to have removed the songs following a petition from the group We Believe in Israel and the Board of Deputies.

Following action from Campaign Against Antisemitism and others, Google has corrected its definition of the word ‘Jew’ after it displayed an antisemitic slur as its top result.

The leading definition that was on display was labelled by Google as an “offensive verb” and read: “bargain with someone in a miserly or petty way.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism promptly contacted Google on the matter, who swiftly resolved it. 

Google later apologised for the incident, writing: “Our apologies. Google licenses definitions from third-party dictionary experts. We only display offensive definitions by default if they are the main meaning of a term. As this is not the case here, we have blocked this & passed along feedback to the partner for further review.”

This is not the first time this has happened, and we are asking for monitoring to be put in place to ensure that the algorithm does not repeat this incorrect behaviour. 

Last year, Google admitted that it “must do better” after more than 150 antisemitic comments were discovered on the Google Maps site for the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

Only a few months later, it was reported that Google’s Head of Diversity Strategy wrote that Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war and killing” and an “insensitivity to the suffering [of] others.”

Reports have surfaced that a “Jewish Studies Centre” backed by the Iranian regime has published over 1,000 inflammatory articles about Jews since its establishment in 2016.

The Centre has apparently published articles, reports, comment pieces, books, and videos. Much of the output is arranged into ten categories with names like “Jews and the Media”, “Jewish Methods”, and “Jewish Corruption”.

One such category bears the name “Jewish Plots”. Containing about 50 articles, this section of the website exists to accuse Jews of taking part in a conspiracy to undermine Iran and the rest of the Islamic world.

Other examples of the output include claims that Jews are “bloodthirsty” and a “deviant” people who are guilty of “infanticide”, and that Jews are “promoters of corruption, drug trafficking, superstition, racism and homosexuality around the world”. This includes the claim that Jewish fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger is part of a wider Jewish conspiracy to promote sexual permissiveness.

Some of the material includes Holocaust denial, which is described as a “myth” and “a new religion in the West” promoted by Jews in order to extract money from the United States and establish the State of Israel. 

The Jewish Studies Centre, which some critics have said is a deliberately misleading name, is supported by the Revolutionary Guards, the Foreign Ministry, the Religious Endowments Organisation, and a number of other bodies directly associated with the Iranian state.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

A leaked audio recording of a well-known YouTuber reported to have a large following on the far-right appears to show him saying that he would like someone to “press the button to wipe Jews off the face of the earth.”

Paul Joseph Watson runs the Prison Planet YouTube channel, which has 1.9 million subscribers, and is a former editor of Infowars, a website owned by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Mr Watson is a well-known voice in the controversial “alt-right” movement in which inflammatory conspiracy theories commonly circulate.

Mr Watson’s alleged comments were apparently secretly recorded during a private conversation, and they come in the context of other racist and homophobic slurs. The recording appears to show that Mr Watson says he is sick of “media f***** activists” sticking signs “up in my face trying to get me to join the gay f***** Palestinian cause. I don’t give a shit about Israel and Palestine. I care about white people. Not sand n***** Jew P*** f***** c***s.”

Mr Watson’s output rarely contains such explicit racism, and he is known to have appeared on platforms with former members of the youth conservative movement Turning Point USA, Candace Owens, various figures associated with former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, figures associated with the Brexit Party, and he has reportedly interacted with billionaire Elon Musk on Twitter.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

A sixteen-year-old boy who allegedly wrote on Twitter, “I am a domestic terror threat. I will bomb a synagogue,” and appeared to begin trying to realise this ambition has outrageously avoided a custodial sentence.

Liverpool Youth Court heard that the boy, who has autism and cannot be named for legal reasons, searched Google for his nearest synagogue, downloaded instructions for making bombs and was pictured wearing a mask with swastikas on and making a white power salute and Nazi salute.

It is understood that the boy became radicalised after he began playing the free online video game Fortnite, which allows participants to contact other players in virtual “hangouts”.

Gerard Pitt, defending, said that the boy had become part of a hangout oriented towards far-right politics, and then went on to write a number of antisemitic, racist and anti-LGBT posts on social media, as well as some that promoted the “incel” subculture.

Mr Pitt told the court that the boy possessed a “very large library” of far-right content, but has since moved away from these views.

Sentencing, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring said: “Virtually every minority group that exists you had something derogatory to say about. I have been doing this job as a judge for twelve years and I have been involved in the criminal justice system for 23 years and this is some of the most appalling behaviour by a young person I have seen in terms of the comments you made, the views you expressed. They are, and should rightly be, abhorred by everyone.”

He added: “It is the scale, scope and nature of your hatred for fellow men and women. In fact my heart sank when I read the case papers for the first time.”

However, Mr Goldspring reportedly opined that it would be inappropriate to impose a custodial punishment and that this could jeopardise the positive rehabilitative steps that the boy has apparently made. Consequently, the boy was given only a twelve-month referral order. Mr Goldspring said: “I’m of the view, albeit I struggled greatly with making the decision, that a non-custodial sentence would be in the public interest.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “We are seeing more and more youngsters being groomed and recruited by the far-right, which is immensely troubling. Video games are one of the most attractive mediums for extremist propagandising, and parents, teachers and the authorities ignore them at our peril. The Chief Magistrate, who even admitted that this is one of the most appalling cases in his entire career, is absolutely wrong not to impose a custodial sentence. He may, astoundingly, believe that it is not in the public interest to incarcerate someone who declared his intention to bomb a synagogue and may have sought ways to do so, but the Jewish community would beg to differ. It is not for nought that synagogues in the UK require security guards and other special safety measures. This sentence is grossly insufficient and must be enhanced.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance was forced to retract and redesign a custom emoji after users on Twitter pointed out that it looked like a swastika.

Twitter is known to occasionally let brands make their own emojis to use in hashtags to promote their products and services. On this occasion, Binance, the world’s largest digital currency exchange, created the emoji to promote their hashtags #Binance, #BNB, and #BitcoinButton.

The controversial Binance emoji was a block with the company’s logo surrounded by four pixelated arms bent at right angles. According to Twitter users, the result looked like a swastika.

Some users were also quick to point out that Binance chose to launch the emoji on 20th April, which is Adolf Hitler’s birthday.

Binance wrote on Twitter: “Well that was obviously really embarrassing. We’re not sure how that emoji got through several layers of review without anyone noticing, but we immediately flagged the issue, pulled it down, and the new emoji design is being rolled out as we speak.”

The entry on antisemitism in the highly-respected Encyclopedia Britannica asserts that Arab people and other “Semites” cannot be racist against Jews.

The encyclopaedia explains that “anti-Semitism” is “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group,” and explains the history of term.

It goes on to explain that “Although the term now has wide currency, it is a misnomer, since it implies a discrimination against all Semites. Arabs and other peoples are also Semites, and yet they are not the targets of anti-Semitism as it is usually understood.” This is true to a point, albeit that the appellation “Semite” is today generally only applied to languages rather than ethnic groups.

To avoid any misunderstanding that antisemitism applies to any community other than Jews, the term is increasingly spelled “antisemitism”.

But the problems – to which spelling the term as “anti-Semitism”, with a hyphen, opens the door – is that one might begin to think either that “anti-Semitism” applies to all “Semitic” peoples, as explained above, or that “Semites” cannot be antisemitic. These problems arise from an etymological fallacy, by which the roots or etymology of a term is used to make an argument about its current accepted meaning or usage. Thus the entry erroneously proceeds to say: “The term [“anti-Semitism”] is especially inappropriate as a label for the anti-Jewish prejudices, statements, or actions of Arabs or other Semites,” which is dangerous nonsense. Of course Arab people can be antisemitic, as indeed can any other Middle Eastern people or group that speaks a Semitic language, including Jewish people themselves.

We shall be writing to Encyclopedia Britannica to correct the entry.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “By insisting on spelling antisemitism as ‘anti-Semitism’, Encyclopedia Britannica ends up committing an etymological fallacy. The result is the antisemitic trope that ‘Semites’ cannot hate Jews. This is ignorant and dangerous, and we shall be writing to Encyclopedia Britannica to correct this error urgently.”

An outrageous website that compares Israeli policies to the Holocaust has now chosen to attack Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Shoah.org.uk, a website that launched in 2011 and joined Twitter earlier this year, says that its “aim is to give a voice to the millions of ordinary people around the word who want to end to the ‘Zio-Nazi’ oppression, environmental destruction of Palestine.”

The Shoah is the Hebrew name of the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jewish men, women and children at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.

It is believed that the website is managed by Sammi Ibrahem, a former council candidate for the Birmingham Workers Party and may now be a member of the Communist Party. He has also reportedly been praised by the antisemite Gilad Atzmon, who has previously been forced to make a humiliating apology to Campaign Against Antisemitism following defamation proceedings.

According to the JC, a Twitter profile with a picture matching the logo of the website tweeted last year: “inshalla [G-d-willing] we see another Holocaust so will be no Zionist at all [sic].”

The website reportedly responded to the JC’s request for comment saying: “The views in our articles are those of the authors and not necessarily reflect those of shoah.org.uk.”

This week, the website republished an article recycling criticisms of Campaign Against Antisemitism common on the far-left. The article was originally published in 2018 on a different website.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It is sometimes said that one is known by one’s adversaries. If our organisation is despised by people who equate Israel with Nazis, make light of the Holocaust and fraternise with those who call for another genocide of the Jewish people, then we must be doing something right.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

A man is facing trial after being accused of creating the website “Radio Aryan” in order to upload antisemitic and racist podcasts.

James Allchurch, 49 from Pembrokeshire, appeared at Haverfordwest Magistrates’ Court yesterday where he denied fifteen counts of distributing a sound recording stirring up racial hatred. He was bailed to appear at Swansea Crown Court on 15th September.

Mr Allchurch reportedly wore a mask, visor and sunglasses, and asked that people refer to him as “Sven Longshanks”. When asked why Mr Allchurch wished to be called Sven Longshanks, he allegedly replied: “This is my life’s work that is on trial and that’s the name that my work is published under.”

The court reportedly heard that Radio Aryan had been running since 2015, and that twelve of the charges related to material allegedly offensive to people from black or ethnic minority communities while three relate to podcasts accused of being antisemitic.

Mr Allchurch reportedly pleaded not guilty to all charges.

It has been reported that pornography sites have allowed antisemitic content to remain on their platforms despite being notified about it. Attempts to flag the videos have reportedly been ignored.

Dozens of videos containing antisemitic themes have been found, including some where actors dressed as Nazis act out scenes in which they rape Jewish women. Another video is reportedly titled “Palestinian raping a Jew”.

Fighting Online Antisemitism is the group behind the shocking reports.

Group founder Tomer Aldubi said that pornography sites are very quick to remove content of underage people or “revenge porn”, but in regard to antisemitism, “the porn giants seem to not want to address it.”

Image credit: Fighting Online Antisemitism via JTA

Some of Wikipedia’s most popular pages were very briefly vandalised with pictures of swastikas after the online encyclopaedia was hacked on Monday.

The antisemitic images replaced the text and pictures briefly to a number of pages dedicated to celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, and Madonna. The entry for Joseph Stalin also briefly displayed Nazi symbols.

A spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the online encyclopaedia, described the appearance of the Nazi symbols as “particularly vile” but said that the “vandalism” had been “fixed quickly” and the account responsible had been blocked.

The spokesperson told The Sun newspaper that a “wiki template…was vandalised on English Wikipedia” on the day that the alleged hack occurred. This “resulted in a Nazi flag appearing for a few minutes on a number of articles.”

She added that the vandalism was reversed “within five minutes” and that the “template was protected from additional negative behaviour…within fifteen minutes.” Wikipedia volunteers and administrators would “further evaluate the situation to see if additional recourse” was needed, she said.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project. 

A website inspired by a pro-Nazi World War II-era newspaper is no longer online after the French Interior Minister urged its closure and warned that its publishers and backers may be prosecuted.

Gérald Darmanin denounced the site, Je Suis Partout (I Am Everywhere), in a Twitter post as “deeply scandalous and nauseating”, and said that he had urged French law enforcement agencies to close the site “as quickly as possible” and to prosecute the publishers and backers. In a later tweet, Mr Darmanin said that web hosting companies and social media managers “must recognise their responsibilities.”

It is unclear whether the site’s disappearance is due to French Government intervention or to a decision to move to another hosting company.

The website had the same name as a weekly newspaper published in France during the Nazi occupation by French Nazi and collaborator Robert Brasillach, and its main offering was an elaborate graphic under the headline Ils Sont Partout  (They Are Everywhere) that purported to show Jewish control of media and other key industries in France.

There has been a fresh wave of antisemitic conspiracy theories across France in recent weeks. It is believed to have originated with an antisemitic rant by a retired French army general during a now-infamous television interview in June.

Last Wednesday, a memorial in Perros-Guirec dedicated to Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former Minister of Health, was found vandalised.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project. 

Merchandise featuring the neo-Nazi slogans “Camp Auschwitz” and “6mwe” have been found on the image-sharing social media platform, Pinterest.

Last week, an article from The Markup revealed that 64 ‘pins’ – images that can be uploaded and shared – featured merchandise containing the acronym “6mwe”, the neo-Nazi acronym for the phrase “6 million wasn’t enough”, which refers to Nazi Germany’s genocide of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

Nine pins were discovered that featured throw pillows, backpacks, travel mugs, and face masks with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz” over a skull and the phrase “Work brings freedom”, the slogan above the gates of Auschwitz, one of the most notorious concentration camps where over a million people were murdered.

These pins seemingly contravene several of Pinterest’s community guidelines, specifically the ones which prohibit content that features:

  • Support for hate groups and people promoting hateful activities, prejudice and conspiracy theories
  • Support for white supremacy, limiting women’s rights and other discriminatory ideas
  • Hate-based conspiracy theories and misinformation, like Holocaust denial

In fact, when searching for the term “6mwe” through the Pinterest website, you are met with the message: “Pinterest isn’t a place for hateful images, content or activities. Find out more about our policies.”

The means of accessing these pins were not found through the search function on the Pinterest website, but through Google. Typing “6mwe hoodie” will not yield any results when entered on Pinterest itself, but when typed into Google, you are presented with a backdoor portal that can allow you to view the hateful content on Pinterest. This is because Pinterest’s strategy on targeting hateful content revolves around restricting access to it, rather than taking it down. This means that Pinterest may have a blind spot when it comes to considering how individuals may be able to access its content using other methods.  

When presented with the findings, the pins were removed. Crystal Espinosa, a spokesperson for the website, said that “there’s no place for content like this on Pinterest.” She added: “When we identify or are made aware of content that violates our policies, we review and take action.”

When asked why the pins were accessible in the first place, Ms Espinosa said that moderation over the website could be improved, and that “given the volume and complexity of content, there is always more work to do, and we also recognise that we have more opportunities to improve.”  

The “Camp Auschwitz” pins all lead to Redbubble, an online marketplace that allows users to upload their custom designs to a variety of products. Marissa Hermo, a spokesperson for Redbubble, said that these items were violations of its policy and were removed on the same day as they were uploaded. “We have a suspend-for-review mechanism in place for specific topics, so this content should not have been available for public view,” Ms Hermo said.

38 antisemitic pins reportedly lead to actual products hosted by various online sellers. Most of the products had been removed or had inactive links, but nearly one-third were still available to buy from vendors like donefashion.com, funnysayingtshirts.com, myclothzoo.com, teesbuys.com, teeshirtxyz.com, and teejabs.com. These websites were approached for comment but did not respond.

When approached for comment, it was pointed out by Google spokesperson Jane Park that content can be taken down from the search engine when a website removes said content from its own platform first, and then uses the “Outdated Content” tool. “Our results reflect information available on the open web, and sites can choose if they want to have their pages indexed by Google,” said Ms Park.

Presented with this information, Ms Espinosa said: “We have oversight of the content that appears on our platform and work with Google to expedite removal of links to content that has been removed from Pinterest. We’re always working to speed up this process so that policy-violating content is not persistent elsewhere.”

At the time of writing, Campaign Against Antisemitism found that 6mwe merchandise was still available on Pinterest with an active link leading to the product from an online vendor. In the comment section, a user wrote: “sorry if you don’t like it, but if you don’t order this shirts its doesnt’t matter or may be do you have any idea or suggestion the interesting shirts. thanks : )”

Campaign Against Antisemitism also discovered several accounts on Pinterest sharing images of Nazis with the numbers “1488” in their profile name (examples can be seen here and here). 1488 is often used as a coded reference to the neo-Nazi fourteen-word oath: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”, a slogan initially devised by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group “The Order” which was responsible for the murder of Jewish radio host Alan Berg. The number 88 refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, and is intended as a code for “Heil Hitler.”

This is not the first instance of neo-Nazi items being advertised through large, online websites.

Last year, Amazon removed t-shirts, hoodies and cups, emblazoned with “6mwe”. The neo-Nazi items were allegedly also available for a short time at American online site Teespring, but the apparel site reportedly said that the neo-Nazi attire had been removed and the seller “permanently banned”, with a spokesperson noting that the site “categorically” did not “allow or condone” harmful content that may lead to “harassment or violence” or “threats to the health and safety of the public.”

Earlier this year, the online marketplace Etsy apologised for selling a t-shirt with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz” and reported that it had immediately banned the seller after being made aware of the item. The item, which came to prominence after photographs emerged of a protestor at the attack on Capitol Hill wearing similar apparel, was described on the website as “everything you’ve dreamed of and more” and “flattering for both men and women”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Mark Zuckerberg has been targeted with antisemitic abuse on Facebook.

On Tuesday, Mr Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, posted a collection of photos depicting his dog wearing different items of clothing. One of the photos showed his dog wearing a Jewish skullcap, or “kippah”, and a prayer shawl, or “tallit.” 

In response, the photo’s comment section was swarmed with antisemitic images and memes. Some of the comments included caricatures of Jews with long, hooked noses, allusions to Jews in control of the media, and other widely used antisemitic memes. 

Numerous anti-Israel comments and images were posted as well. According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations” is an example of antisemitism. 

Last year, the satirical puppet show, Spitting Image, came under fire for a caricature of Mark Zuckerberg with a gratuitously big nose.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has long called for tougher regulations on social media sites and that social networks proactively search for and remove hate speech from their platforms.

John McDonnell, the Labour MP former Shadow Chancellor, has tweeted his support for The Canary, a controversial hard-left blog, despite the fact that it is under investigation by the Government’s Independent Advisor on Antisemitism and its editor’s history of antisemitic statements.

Mr McDonnell was supporting a crowdfunding campaign for the website, even though its editor, Kerry-Ann Mendoza, has repeatedly compared Israel to the Nazis, in breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Ms Mendoza has also previously attacked Campaign Against Antisemitism using violent language, saying “The antisemitism witch hunt is seriously about to face off with #BlackLivesMatter I’m telling you now, those anti-Black, anti-Palestinian racists are gonna get their asses dragged all over town. And they have no clue. Because…entitlement.”

Recently, Mr McDonnell tweeted a photo of an antisemitic sign which was featured at a rally that he himself attended. Last year, Mc McDonnell was accused of sharing a platform with expelled Labour members at the Labour Representation Committee’s Annual General Meeting, namely Jackie Walker and Tony Greenstein, but he claimed that it was “ridiculous” to suggest that as it was an open meeting and that he could not control who spoke. He remains the Honorary President of the controversial group.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

Leading Silicon Valley figures have signed a letter condemning the recent surge of antisemitism in the United States.

The letter’s signatories include former Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo, Co-founder of HuffPost, Arianna Huffington, as well as several Google and YouTube executives.

The letter begins: “If we’re going to stand against hate in all its forms, we need to stand against antisemitism. Too few Americans acknowledge that antisemitism — prejudice against Jewish people — exists. It is an insidious and long-standing hatred.”

Commenting on the recent spate of antisemitic attacks across the United States, the letter says: “The pain and the fear around these violent attacks reverberates against the unshakable memory of the Holocaust. This horrific mass murder of Jews showed us how deep antisemitism runs, and what can happen when we allow hate against people because of their religion, race, sexuality, or any other aspect of their identity.

“As business leaders, we have a collective responsibility to stand up for the society we want. Today, we stand against antisemitism and violence against Jews. This is true regardless of your views on Israel; this is about protecting people from the injustice of antisemitism and hatred.”

However, while the letter is a welcome step in the right direction, many of these companies still have a long way to go in tackling antisemitism. Recently, for example, Campaign Against Antisemitism reported that Google’s Head of Diversity Strategy wrote that Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war and killing” and an “insensitivity to the suffering [of] others.” He was not fired from Google but merely moved to another post.

Last week, we published findings that YouTube has allowed the creators of virulently antisemitic videos that refer to the “Jewish lobby” and describe Hitler as “an angel” to continue to use platform.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

It has been reported that Google’s Head of Diversity Strategy wrote that Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war and killing” and an “insensitivity to the suffering [of] others.”

The revelation came after a blog post written by Kamau Bobb almost fifteen years ago surfaced this week. The antisemitic sentiments were a part of a longer post, titled “If I Were A Jew,” which touched upon the attitudes Jews were alleged to have towards the conflict in Israel.

The excerpt from 30th November 2007 reads: “If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself. Self defense is undoubtedly an instinct, but I would be afraid of my increasing insensitivity to the suffering [of] others.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews” is an example of antisemitism.

The blog is still active, with Mr Bobb having posted in it as recently as April of this year.

When criticising the actions of the Israeli government, Mr Bobb wrote: “If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long cycles of oppression that Jewish people have endured and the insatiable appetite for vengeful violence that Israel, my homeland, has now acquired.

“I don’t know how I would reconcile that identity with the behaviour of fundamentalist Jewish extremists or of Israel as a nation. The details would confuse me. I wouldn’t understand those who suggest that bombing Lebanon, slaughtering Lebanese people and largely destroying Beirut in retaliation for the capture of a few soldiers is justified.”

Israel was engaged in conflict with the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, Hizballah, in 2006. According to the Definition, “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel” is also an example of antisemitism, as is “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”.

Observing that it was the 79th anniversary of Kristallnacht at the time that he was writing, Mr Bobb placed an onus on Jewish people to speak out on current events due to the murder of the six million Jews in the Holocaust.

“My reflections on Kristallnacht would lead me to feel that these are precisely the human sentiments that I as Jew would understand; that I ought to understand and feel compelled to help alleviate,” Mr Bobb wrote.

“It cannot be that the sum total of a history of suffering and slaughter places such a premium on my identity that I would be willing to damn others in defense of it.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It should be remarkable that Google could hire as its Head of Diversity Strategy someone who has compared Israel to Nazis and characterised Jews as warmongers. But, sadly, revelations such as these are becoming more unremarkable, because the Jewish community has come to realise that, among online influencers and corporate trendsetters, racism directed at Jews simply does not count.

“Social media companies fail time and again to address antisemitism on their platforms, and with diversity officers like this, it is no wonder why. That is why we continue to call for the Government to bring forward Online Harms legislation as soon as possible.

“If Google wants to show that it is serious about tackling anti-Jewish hate, it should begin by removing Mr Bobb and adopting the International Definition of Antisemitism, which can then be applied both in its workplaces and across its platforms to identify the sort of racism against Jews that Mr Bobb has expressed and that too often goes unsanctioned.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

The Turkish Jewish community’s main news website has been targeted in an antisemitic hack attack.

The home page of the Salom website was reportedly taken down by a group called “IBDA-Cyber Front”.

The hackers displayed the flag of the Palestinian Authority alongside a child with a slingshot, and sent a message that read: “Our actions will continue until Palestine is free and independent!”

Avlaremosis, a Turkish website monitoring antisemitism, said: “It is obvious that the attack carried out will fuel the hatred of the Jews in Turkish society.” 

Earlier this week, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan drew American ire after publicly promoting an antisemitic trope.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Image credit: The Algemeiner

The University of North Florida (UNF) was vandalised with stickers that bore QR codes, which, when scanned, lead to a white supremacy website displaying antisemitic content.

The stickers were placed on the doors of classrooms belonging to Jewish professors. They were discovered on 29th March, two days into the Jewish festival of Passover.

UNF stated that the student responsible for the incident was identified and referred to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Inclusion and Student Conduct.

UNF said: “The University of North Florida wholeheartedly rejects hate in all its forms. We stand in solidarity with our Jewish community and strongly condemn these actions.”

UNF’s Jewish Student Union posted on Instagram in support of fellow Jewish students and condemning the incident. One Jewish student said: “I was kind of shocked. Why would you spread the message of something bad out there?” 

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

Google has admitted that it “must do better” after more than 150 antisemitic comments were discovered on the Google Maps site for the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

An investigation by The Guardian discovered the comments, which included posts such as “Heil Hitler”; “It’s a shame the SS was disbanded so long ago”; “Showers were a great experience, Anne Frankly I’m glad I came”; and “Good place to go if you want to lose weight fast”. Some of the comments had been on the site for years – in the case of the latter comment even close to a decade.

Many posts were anonymous, but others used pseudonyms such as prominent Holocaust survivors or Nazis.

Google allows users to post written reviews of sites around the world, including the museum at the death camp, which operated during World War II and where over one million people – mostly Jews – were murdered.

A spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said that the much-anticipated online harms bill “will hold tech platforms to account for tackling and removing illegal content such as antisemitic comments. We will impose tough sanctions including huge fines if they do not act”.

A Google spokesperson reportedly said: “We are appalled by these reviews on our platform and are taking action to remove the content and prevent further abuse. We have clear policies that prohibit offensive and fake reviews and we work around the clock to monitor Maps. In this case, we know we need to do better and are working to evaluate and improve our detection systems.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has long called for tougher regulations on social media sites and that social networks proactively search for and remove hate speech from their platforms.

The controversial website, Dorset Eye, has dubiously joined the relatively new media regulator, Impress.

Dorset Eye now displays the regulator’s kitemark on its website purportedly guaranteeing its “commitment to the principles of journalism”.

In 2019, the website accused the Jewish television presenter and anti-extremism activist, Rachel Riley, of working for the “Israeli state propaganda machine” and claimed that “her goons” will be responsible for “another Jo Cox moment”, a reference to the murder of the MP by a white supremacist. “Whether she is paid for her hate and propaganda is not for me to say but she is quite obviously (if only to me) a fascist and an Israeli state terrorist sympathiser,” the article went on to say.

Another article on the website described Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis as “a modern day Judas” and “paid agent” of Israel. The article, which has since been removed, also warned of “another Kristallnacht”, referencing the infamous antisemitic Nazi pogrom in 1938.

Impress is officially recognised by the Government’s Press Regulation Panel and is partly funded by the family foundation of Max Mosley. Its members are required to abide by “minimum professionals standards” and must not “make prejudicial or pejorative reference to a person on the basis of that person’s…race, religion…or another characteristic that makes that person vulnerable to discrimination”.

An Impress spokesperson reportedly said: “The role of an approved press regulator is not to endorse the actions of those it regulates but to fairly and neutrally investigate and assess the newsgathering practices and content.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Questions must be asked of Impress for this decision. No serious regulator would take on Dorset Eye, a community website and resource which purports to have a warm and fuzzy image to publish antisemitic articles that clearly breach the International Definition of Antisemitism.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism monitors the media and regularly holds outlets to account. If members of the public are concerned about reportage in the media, they should contact us at [email protected].

The Daily Blog, a far-left website in New Zealand, has shared an antisemitic cartoon three times.

The image depicts Zionism as a virus – reminiscent of the age-old antisemitic trope that Jews spread disease, which has received new life during the coronavirus pandemic – and features an “S” in a font widely associated with the Nazi “SS”. According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.

The first of the three articles to which the cartoon was attached – back in November – was titled the “crucifixion of Jeremy Corbyn”, a further offensive allusion. The two more recent articles are from earlier this month.

The Daily Blog describes itself as uniting “Top Left-Wing Political Commentators and Progressive Opinion Shapers”. It launched in 2013 and its editor is Martyn Bradbury. Sitting outside of the mainstream media landscape, it is not believed to have a large following.

This cartoon was apparently drawn by the notorious cartoonist Malcolm Evans, who claims that he was sacked from his job at New Zealand’s largest newspaper, The New Zealand Herald, in 2003, for refusing to stop drawing controversial cartoons about the Jewish state, although the newspaper’s editor denied that this was the reason.

The New Zealand Jewish Council has made representations on the issue and is considering appropriate further action.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist with this project.

An employee was sacked by one of the world’s leading banking groups after he was found to be running a conspiracy theory website which attracted millions of visitors.

An investigation into Jason Gelinas, an information technology specialist with New York City-based Citigroup, began after a fact checking website showed that Mr Gelinas was the “sole developer and mouthpiece” of a QAnon website. This was apparently in violation of Citigroup’s policy of engaging in paid business activity outside the company. He was put “on leave in mid-September” while the investigation was pending, and was subsequently sacked.

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that believes that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, consisting of political figures, celebrities and billionaires, is running a global paedophilic ring and plotting against the President, who is planning to make a stand against the secret group.

At the height of its popularity, Mr Gelinas’s  site was attracting ten million visitors a month, according to the traffic-tracking organisation, SimilarWeb. It also reported that the site was receiving around $3,320 (£2,654) a month in donations made via Patreon, a US-based artists’ platform.

The firing came within days of an announcement by Facebook that it will no longer host pages linked to QAnon in line with its policy of stopping the promotion of conspiracy theories.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has expanded our coverage of antisemitism worldwide. Please contact us if you would like to share feedback or volunteer to assist us with this project.

Following discussions with Campaign Against Antisemitism, Google has acted to remove the disgusting “Jewish baby stroller” meme from its image search engine.

Campaign Against Antisemitism approached our contacts at Google after we received a number of reports that searching for “Jewish baby stroller” using Google Images returned images of a gas barbecue oven, in a disgusting reference to the gassing and cremation of Jewish children along with their parents by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.

The problem was that the search term “Jewish baby stroller” reveals what is known as a data void. In short, unlike other search terms such as “blue baby stroller” or “lightweight baby stroller”, which return helpful content, there is no helpful content for “Jewish baby stroller” because it is not something that people search for and there is no such thing as a “Jewish baby stroller”. Therefore, the only content that Google’s algorithms could find was the abhorrent meme.

Soon after we contacted Google, the company apologised and took steps to improve its algorithm.

A spokesperson for Google said: “We apologise. These [search results] don’t reflect our opinions. We try to show content matching all key terms searched for, as people normally want. But for ‘data voids’ like this, it can be problematic…We’ve done considerable work with improving data void situations and finding systematic improvements.”

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Having discussed this with Google, we understand how this situation arose. We are pleased that Google listened and acted quickly. We are grateful to everyone who reported this to us.”

Ironically there are still some images of the meme still available on Google Images, but they are only from articles explaining why the meme is so despicable.

Urban Dictionary, the online crowd-sourced dictionary of slang words, has deleted antisemitic definitions of “anti-Zionism” following a campaign by online activists, including Campaign Against Antisemitism.

However, while “anti-Zionist” has no definitions and several antisemitic definitions of “anti-Zionism” have been removed and replaced by new, more accurate definitions, a new offensive definition has also arisen.

There is also a new offensive definition of “Zionism”.

During the campaign against the antisemitic definitions, Campaign Against Antisemitism threatened to bring the matter to the attention of advertisers in order to go after Urban Dictionary’s advertising revenue, as we have done before, in order to pressure Urban Dictionary to remove the definitions. We will continue to campaign against anti-Jewish racism on Urban Dictionary and other major websites and social media.

Campaign Against Antisemitism recently and successfully pressured advertisers to withdraw from Urban Dictionary due to its promotion of antisemitism, and the website removed a particularly offensive entry as a result. In the past, the website has removed other gratuitously offensive terms, but is generally slow to act against racism on the website.

The robotic Twitter handle of the online crowd-sourced dictionary of slang words known Urban Dictionary has promoted an antisemitic entry on the website about “anti-Zionism”.

If someone sends the Twitter handle a term that features on the controversial website, it will automatically provide a screenshot of the definition.

A Twitter user asked the handle to provide a definition of “Zionism” but instead got a definition for “anti-Zionism”, which read: “Anti-Zionism is in no way connected to antisemitism. To be antizionist is to be anti-fascist. Zionism is based on the idea that millenia old literary myth is the basis for nationhood and that religion (which is a matter of choice) is genetically predetermined, both of which are clearly shite. Zionists believe that they can turn up in a country and kick out the indigenous population, as did Hitler. Zionists are fascist.” (emphasis in original).

The definition has received, at time of writing, 2,715 thumbs up compared to 1,433 thumbs down. These ratings determine how prominent the definition is as opposed to alternative definitions for the same term.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said “Comparing Zionism to Nazism is textbook antisemitism, which has become all too common on Urban Dictionary. Those behind the website have been slow to act against racism on their platform, but in the past we have successfully pressured them to delete gratuitously antisemitic entries by going after their advertisers. We will not hesitate to do so again if Urban Dictionary does not remove this entry and prove that it is capable of administering a site that doesn’t incite hatred.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism recently and successfully pressured advertisers to withdraw from Urban Dictionary due to its promotion of antisemitism, and the website removed a particularly offensive entry as a result. In the past, the website has removed other gratuitously offensive terms, but is generally slow to act against racism on the website.

Although racist products are prohibited on Amazon, Google and Wish according to their policies, not only have neo-Nazi items been available for sale, but the platforms’ algorithms have been promoting the white supremacist merchandise.

Amazon was selling a flag with a Celtic Cross, a popular white supremacist symbol, while Wish was selling Ku Klux Klan-themed products and the page was recommending “related items”, such as a hood and a Celtic Cross.

The revelations came following an investigation by the BBC.

The companies each released a statement:

Amazon said: “The products in question are no longer available and we’ve taken action on the bad actors that offered the products and violated our policies.”

Google said: “We don’t allow ads or products that are sold on our platforms that display shocking content or promote hatred. We enforce these policies vigorously and take action when we determine they are breached.”

Wish said: “We are working hard to remove these items and taking additional steps to prevent such items appearing again.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has previously been in contact with online retailers over neo-Nazi merchandise available for sale.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been informed by Google that it has decided to remove only one video from Wiley’s YouTube channel, from which he continues to broadcast disturbing videos to almost 250,000 followers.

The performer, who has was finally banned from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram following worldwide outrage, is now uploading further videos to a small Instagram account that appears to be new, and his popular YouTube channel.

The videos continue in the same vein as his previous videos and his recent interviews with Sky News and The Voice, a newspaper for the black community, in which he reaffirmed his belief in antisemitic conspiracy theories and bigoted stereotypes about Jews.

For example, in one of the new videos, Wiley demands that an unspecified “you”, which appears from the context to refer to Jews in general, try taking his passport away so that Wiley can see quite how much power the unnamed “you” has.

In another video, he reads the name of a Twitter user and demands to know whether she is a Jew.

In yet another video, he says that he had to “throw myself on the bonfire” to show his audience and “draw everything out — you saw it”.

The videos have already attracted many thousands of views, and comments posted beneath them are vehemently antisemitic.

Google has decided to remove one video, which it said was antisemitic, but not the ones cited above. Google will also revoke Wiley’s monetisation privileges.

A spokesperson for Google told Campaign Against Antisemitism: “Hate speech and content that promotes hate against religious groups is strictly prohibited on YouTube. We’ve worked hard to develop responsible and universal Community Guidelines that make clear what content is unacceptable on our platform, and we enforce our policies consistently, and regardless of viewpoint.”

We are now appealing the decision following failed talks with Google’s management in the UK. Campaign Against Antisemitism has until now had good relations with Google and acts as a ‘trusted flagger’, helping to highlight antisemitic material on YouTube.

Hundreds of thousands of people joined the #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate boycott of Twitter and Instagram. We had hoped that social media companies might have learned from this, but Google’s decision to allow Wiley to continue to broadcast his disturbing messages to hundreds of thousands of his followers on YouTube shows that Google is just as bad as the rest.

We are concerned that his fans could be inspired to act on Wiley’s hateful broadcasts. That is why we have asked social networks to take him off air, and reported Wiley to the police and intend to privately prosecute him should the authorities refuse to act. This underlines how urgent it is that the Government legislates to regulate these deeply irresponsible companies.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “We are aghast. Today is Tisha B’Av, one of the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, when we remember past persecution of the Jewish people. Today of all days, an appalling antisemite who was banned from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram following a global campaign, has shown up on YouTube to continue broadcasting, and Google has decided to defend him.

“Google is acting as though Wiley has not spent the past week spewing antisemitic conspiracy theories to hundreds of thousands of people using every social media platform available to him. He has called for Jews to be shot, for a ‘war’ against Jews, and said that Jews are rich exploiters, slavers, cheats, thieves and cowards. He has even claimed that modern-day Jews are in fact imposters, drawing on the same conspiracy theory whose believers have tormented Jews in London and murdered Jews in the states of New Jersey and New York.

“Google is behaving dangerously and sending a clear message that it provides a safe space for Jew-hate. Google’s failure to act will not go unanswered. It is now the last bastion for this appalling antisemite. We have appealed the decision following failed talks with Google’s management in the UK and hope that the company will now see sense.”

Urban Dictionary has removed a page devoted to the antisemitic term “Holocaust n*****” following contact between Campaign Against Antisemitism and numerous advertisers on the controversial website, several of which have now pulled their marketing from the website altogether.

After research seen by Campaign Against Antisemitism and conducted by Dr Daniel Allington, who is Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London and a volunteer with Campaign Against Antisemitism, showed that many entries in Urban Dictionary appear to have been written by white supremacists and other bigots and that well-known brands are profiting from their racism, Campaign Against Antisemitism alerted several household brands, a number of which immediately thanked us for contacting them and took immediate remedial action to protect their reputations. The brands include DFS, People’s Postcode Lottery and Canterbury Christ Church University, all of which were relying on third parties to place advertisements for them online.

As a result of their actions, the “Holocaust n*****” page on the website has been taken down. The definition provided for the offensive term was simply: “a Jew”.

Dr Allington’s research showed other offensive and antisemitic entries on Urban Dictionary. One entry defines the word ‘Jew’ as a verb meaning “To steal something from someone and never return it”, while another on the same page defines a Jew as “A cheap ass n*****”. The top definition for ‘Zionist’ is “One who believes in a political ideology that hijacked Judaism, soon to hijack Christianity’, while the fifth-from-top is “A pig in the temple of God” and the third-from top states “I hate Zionist kikes”.

Some entries try to equate Jews with Nazism or to suggest that the Holocaust did not happen. One of the top definitions of ‘Zionazi’, itself an antisemitic term, claims that “A Zionazi is defined by their will to create and support a single government or group that rules the world, such as the totalitarian New World Order”. The top entry for ‘Holohoax’ claims that “people who ‘deny’ the Holocaust seem to provide more proof and evidence supporting the fact the Holocaust never happened”.

The fourth definition for ‘Hitler’ is “Someone who got 6 000 000 kills in a single match”, while some words in the Urban Dictionary seem to have been entered purely in order to cause offence, including ‘holocaust n*****’ and ‘nigropolis’ (defined as “The world after whites are all killed and racemixed by Zionist Jews and n*****s”).

Dr Allington said: “I realised that hardcore racists were exploiting Urban Dictionary’s ‘anything goes’ philosophy to promote their extremist views. It wouldn’t matter so much if it were an obscure website that nobody had heard of, but Urban Dictionary is one of the most popular websites in the world and it carries adverts for household name brands.”

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “We are pleased that, building on the work of Dr Daniel Allington, our campaign to alert companies to how their brands are being advertised has also brought pressure to bear on Urban Dictionary, which is replete with antisemitic, racist and needlessly offensive entries. We intend to maintain this pressure in the hope that the people behind Urban Dictionary will do the decent thing and clean up their website once and for all.”

People’s Postcode Lottery and Canterbury Christ Church University have both acted to remove their brands from Urban Dictionary after Campaign Against Antisemitism alerted them to their advertisements featuring alongside antisemitic and offensive entries on the controversial website.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has contacted numerous household brands after they were discovered to have been advertising on the controversial website by Dr Daniel Allington in peer-reviewed research published yesterday and seen in advance by Campaign Against Antisemitism. Earlier today, the well-known furniture retailer DFS acted particularly rapidly to remove its advertisements from Urban Dictionary.

Dr Allington, who is Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London and a volunteer with Campaign Against Antisemitism, showed that many entries in the Urban Dictionary appear to have been written by white supremacists and other bigots and that well-known brands are advertising alongside their racism.

Dr Allington said: “I realised that hardcore racists were exploiting Urban Dictionary’s ‘anything goes’ philosophy to promote their extremist views. It wouldn’t matter so much if it was an obscure website that nobody’s heard of, but the Urban Dictionary is one of the most popular websites in the world and it carries adverts for household name brands.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been in contact with People’s Postcode Lottery and Canterbury Christ Church University, who both noted the role of third parties in placing their advertisements online and have advised that they are taking immediate remedial action. They thanked Campaign Against Antisemitism for bringing the matter to their attention.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “We are pleased that several brands have taken swift action to remove their advertisements from Urban Dictionary after we contacted them, as they agree the website is not an appropriate venue for their marketing publicity. We are also grateful to Dr Daniel Allington for his research which has enabled us to take this action, alerting these household brands to protect their reputations.”

DFS, a leading British furniture retailer, has reacted immediately after learning that its brand is being advertised next to racist material on the website Urban Dictionary.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has contacted numerous household brands after they were discovered to have been advertising on the controversial website by Dr Daniel Allington in peer-reviewed research published yesterday and seen in advance by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Dr Allington, who is Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London and a volunteer with Campaign Against Antisemitism, showed that many entries in the Urban Dictionary appear to have been written by white supremacists and other bigots and that well-known brands are advertising alongside their racism.

Dr Allington said: “I realised that hardcore racists were exploiting Urban Dictionary’s ‘anything goes’ philosophy to promote their extremist views. It wouldn’t matter so much if it was an obscure website that nobody’s heard of, but the Urban Dictionary is one of the most popular websites in the world and it carries adverts for household name brands.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been in contact with the Group Chief Executive Officer of DFS who was horrified that his company’s brand was being advertised on Urban Dictionary, contrary to the company’s agreements with its advertisers. Within one day the company has taken immediate remedial action and has thanked Campaign Against Antisemitism for bringing the matter to its attention.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “DFS has responded in a manner that should be a model for the other companies and organisations we have contacted, and indeed for other brands who might be found in a similar situation due to the actions of third-party advertisers. The company has undertaken swift and conclusive action and we are heartened to see such proactivity. We are also grateful to Dr Daniel Allington for his research which has enabled us to take this action, alerting these household brands to protect their reputations.”

An explosive investigation has revealed that household brands are profiting from racist entries and offensive jokes on the website Urban Dictionary.

In new research seen by Campaign Against Antisemitism and conducted by Dr Daniel Allington, who is Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London and a volunteer with Campaign Against Antisemitism, Dr Allington shows that many entries in Urban Dictionary appear to have been written by white supremacists and other bigots and that well-known brands are profiting from their racism.

Dr Allington, an expert on hate speech and extremism, has published the research in the peer-reviewed Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, explains that Urban Dictionary, a website that explains Internet slang and which has been embroiled in controversy over antisemitism in the past, carries adverts for household brands such as DFS and Sky, but that it is also a hotbed of antisemitism.

One Urban Dictionary entry defines the word ‘Jew’ as a verb meaning “To steal something from someone and never return it”, while another on the same page defines a Jew as “A cheap ass n*****”. The top definition for ‘Zionist’ is “One who believes in a political ideology that hijacked Judaism, soon to hijack Christianity’, while the fifth-from-top is “A pig in the temple of God” and the third-from top states “I hate Zionist kikes”.

Some entries try to equate Jews with Nazism or to suggest that the Holocaust did not happen. One of the top definitions of ‘Zionazi’, itself an antisemitic term, claims that “A Zionazi is defined by their will to create and support a single government or group that rules the world, such as the totalitarian New World Order”. The top entry for ‘Holohoax’ claims that “people who ‘deny’ the Holocaust seem to provide more proof and evidence supporting the fact the Holocaust never happened”.

The fourth definition for ‘Hitler’ is “Someone who got 6 000 000 kills in a single match”, while some words in the Urban Dictionary seem to have been entered purely in order to cause offence, such as ‘holocaust n*****’ (defined simply as “a Jew”) and ‘nigropolis’ (defined as “The world after whites are all killed and racemixed by Zionist Jews and n*****s”).

Dr Allington said: “I realised that hardcore racists were exploiting Urban Dictionary’s ‘anything goes’ philosophy to promote their extremist views. It wouldn’t matter so much if it were an obscure website that nobody had heard of, but Urban Dictionary is one of the most popular websites in the world and it carries adverts for household name brands.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism is writing to advertisers on Urban Dictionary to alert them to the content on the website next to which their brands appear and urging them to withdraw from the website.

Urban Dictionary, an online crowd-sourced dictionary of slang words, has apologised for needless and offensive definitions of the word “Auschwitz” and related phrases, and has pledged to remove them, along with merchandise using the word.

The dictionary, which has been operating for over twenty years, contains more than eight million slang words and definitions and attracts some 65 million monthly visitors to the website, boasting 180 million page views. It functions as a platform for user-generated definitions, which are often tongue in cheek, however, its operators have readily conceded that numerous definitions of the Nazi concentration camp and related terms are needlessly offensive and should be removed.

Definitions of Auschwitz available on the popular site include describing it as “a summer camp for Jews – a Disneyland for its time”; “a place there are too many Jews”; “The happy resort for Jews during WW2”; and numerous references to flatulence.

Other terms include:

  • Auschwism”, defined as “when you’re getting roasted but you’re too socially awkward to respond”; “The hopes that all autistic people will go to a concentration camp (Aka Auschwitz)”; and “When a person is so autistic or stupid, they need to be gassed.”
  • Auschwitz burger”, defined as “when you put German bologna on Jewish rye and cook it in a gas oven”.
  • Auschwistic”, defined as “an adjective to describe someone so stupid they deserve to be put in Auschwits [sic]”.
  • Auschwitz diet”, defined as “a nutritional approach to losing weight, based on simply consuming less food.”
  • Auschwitz Express”, defined as “the 16:46 Central to Caboolture train, so name[d] because it is usually more crowded than one of Eichmann’s Auschwitz trains – although Eichmann’s trains generally ran on time.
  • Auschwitz Dining Hall”, defined as “another name for Ohio University’s Boyd Dining Hall located on the West Green. The nickname derives from the reference to the nutritionally void rations the Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz were fed under Nazi rule. Many students on West Green refer to Boyd as Auschwitz because, while Boyd is conveniently located in the center of West Green, it’s [sic] foods look just as bad, if not worse, than the food that was given to Auschwitz inmates.”
  • Auschwistic meltdown”, defined as “an autistic meltdown where you spontaneously combust into ashes.”

Further terms include “Auschwitz gas chamber”, “Auschwitz abortion”, “Auschwitz oven”, “Auschwitz pencil pusher”, and others, typically referencing flatulence, the use of natural gas or a sexual act.

Urban Dictionary also sells branded merchandise, including mugs, t-shirts and other items which carry the definitions on the website. Options include, for example, a £19 mug, £23 t-shirt or £36 sweatshirt marked “Auschwitz abs”, another of the related terms which the website defines as “a particular set of circumstances in which one has a deficient amount of body fat causing them to look like a Nazi concentration camp tenant.”

Responding to complaints about the terms and definitions, Urban Dictionary said: “Thank you for speaking up – we’re deeply sorry and honestly, we must do better. We encourage anyone to flag definitions that use hate speech.”

Urban Dictionary’s terms of service prohibits uploading material that is “detrimental to the quality or intended spirit”of the platform, and users are also able to report abusive or harmful content on the site, with entries deemed to violate policy usually removed within two days, according to the website.

When asked about the merchandise, Urban Dictionary provided a further statement: “Thanks again for holding us accountable. Every definition automatically generates options to print – we agree that it’s inappropriate for these items to be printed or even offered, and we’ve blocked the ability to do so. It may take 24 hours for pages to fully update.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism applauds Urban Dictionary for its pledge to act swiftly to remove the offensive material, and urges the operators to follow through.

Far-left propaganda website Skwawkbox has been caught calling an appalling article about the “Jewish war against Corbyn” both “pertinent and frightening”.

The article, entitled “The Jewish ‘war against Corbyn’ risks bringing real antisemitism to Britain”, accused the Jewish community of exaggerating antisemitism in the Labour Party and thereby putting Jews at risk of reprisals.

Rather than decrying this attempt to smear the Jewish community, Skwawkbox retweeted the article, calling it “Pertinent and frightening”. Skwawkbox later deleted the retweet, offering no apology, instead merely commenting: “Retweeted a tweet earlier by a Jewish author, without endorsement and with the original title unchanged, commenting that it was frightening in the current circumstances. That tweet caused offence, which was not its intent and it has been deleted”.

Skwawkbox did not take long to return to accusing Jews of exaggerating antisemitism for political gain, retweeting a Twitter user who called for the BBC to be shut down for broadcasting an interview with a British Jewish family which is afraid for its future due to the ascent of Jeremy Corbyn.

American banking giant, JP Morgan, has embarrassed Google by developing a system for stopping its ads appearing alongside hate video on Google’s YouTube platform that is better than Google’s own solution.

JP Morgan pulled its advertising from YouTube in March 2017 after it discovered that its ads were appearing alongside inappropriate content.

Google-owned video sharing website YouTube has come under criticism from politicians and advertisers after American banking giant JP Morgan develops its own software to remove advertising from questionable material on the platform.

JP Morgan’s Executive Director of Media and Channel Strategy, Jake Davidow, said: “When news broke about ads finding their way next to horrific pieces of content, we paused our efforts and pulled our ads from YouTube.”

The bank has since developed its own algorithms that use YouTube’s own application programming interface (API) to filter channels on the platform based on comments, subscribers, video count, topics, language and more, using seventeen different filters in total.

Since using the algorithms, JP Morgan has identified 3,000 “safe” channels out of a potential five million on YouTube.

Since developing the technology, JP Morgan has reinstated its advertising with YouTube but the matter has generated controversy with journalists questioning why the company had to take matters into its own hands, highlighting the shortcomings of Google’s own safeguarding systems.

Campaign Against Antisemitism is currently collaborating with Google in efforts to clean up antisemitic hatred on YouTube. We are currently looking for a team to help us flag antisemitic videos using special tools provided by Google. If you would like to join the team, please go to antisemitism.org/volunteer.

Image credit: Gideon Benari

Google and Campaign Against Antisemitism have agreed to collaborate on cleaning up antisemitic hatred on YouTube, with Google granting us access to special content flagging features.

Videos that we report to Google will go through a fast-track reviewing process, following which Google may take the video off YouTube or place a number of limitations on it, such as removing it from video suggestions and making it harder to find. Once a video has been identified as promoting antisemitism, Google will use its algorithms to recognise the video if it is uploaded to YouTube again using a different user account.

Whilst we have not always agreed with Google about what should be on YouTube, this is a very promising collaboration which we hope will enable us to work with Google to reduce the amount of antisemitic material appearing on YouTube.

We are now building a volunteer team to help us to flag videos which should be reported using the special reporting features provided to us by Google. If you would like to join the team, please go to antisemitism.org/volunteer.

Following the discovery that Facebook’s advertising algorithm offered advertisers the opportunity to target categories of users whose views were summarised as “Jew hater”, “How to burn Jews”, or “History of ‘why Jews ruin the world’”, it has now emerged that Twitter and Google also provide an means of targeting antisemites on their platforms.

Twitter has now been found offering a means of targeting almost 19 million users who might be particularly interested in hearing about a “Nazi” offering, and Google has been exposed for suggesting “good quality” keywords to antisemitic advertisers such as “the evil Jew”, “Jewish parasite”, “Jews control the media” and “Jewish control of banks”.

It comes as no surprise whatsoever that these titans of social networking and search can identify antisemites easily: their businesses are driven by their ability to reach huge numbers of people, and profile those people precisely enough to allow advertisers to target specific groups according to their interests.

Now we know Facebook, Twitter, Google and no doubt many others, have developed algorithms so advanced that they even manage to identify antisemites by accident. This shows how easy it is to find Facebook, Twitter and YouTube users who hate Jews. Many antisemites on these platforms make no effort at all to conceal or disguise their hatred, brazenly sharing neo-Nazi, far-left or Islamist antisemitic material. What is so shameful is not that these antisemites exist, but that Facebook, Twitter and Google evidently can identify them and chooses not to expel them from their social networking platform.

Perhaps even more outrageous is that these companies will have been collecting money from advertisers seeking to target antisemites, perhaps to invite them to Jew-hatred rallies or to share antisemitic conspiracy myths with them. Despite apologising when caught out, none of these companies have revealed how much money they made, or what will be done with the proceeds.

The reasons that these companies are so tolerant of antisemites might be related. These online titans are funded by the advertising they sell, which depends on continued growth in the number of their users, and the ability to reliably target all of those users according to their interests. Using their advanced antisemite-targeting algorithms to excise antisemites, extremists and other undesirable people from their social networking platforms could start to slightly dent the growth in the number of their users, which is a key metric of the companies’ success and their attractiveness as advertising platforms.

Now we have confirmation that internet giants are sitting on technology for targeting antisemitic users, but they are using it to sell ads instead of expelling the bigots. That is the real scandal here.

Articles defending Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker’s antisemitic comments and accusing Israel of becoming a “Nazi state” have been posted on the Dorset Eye, a supposed community-friendly website and online magazine which includes sections on “Parenting and Children”, “Older People”, “Wildlife” and “Anti-racism”. The website, founded by Jason and Debbie Cridland, poses as a community resource — “Dorset’s only news outlet for the people of Dorset, by the people of Dorset.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has uncovered disturbing content on the Dorset Eye. An article apparently written by Jamie Stern-Weiner, in the “Anti-racism” section, defended the disgraced and suspended Labour and Momentum activist Jackie Walker. Stern-Weiner wrote that “The antisemitism allegations against Walker are devoid of factual basis.” Another article defended Ken Livingstone’s claim that Hitler supported Zionism. The author, named as Tim Nicholls, wrote that “I have checked, and he is right…To state this is simply a matter of fact and not a demonstration of antisemitism.”

Dorset Eye also ran an article under the name Harry Paterson headlined: “Rockets Into Israel Are The Legitimate Resistance Of A Desperate People”, justifying the firing of rockets into Israel by the genocidal antisemitic terrorist group Hamas. Another, referring to Israel’s invasion of Gaza, posts a piece titled “Dedicated to Israeli foreign policy in Gaza: Dead Kennedys – I Kill Children” dedicates the piece to “the people in Israel…” features a music video and quotes the lyrics “I kill children, I love to see them die”, appearing to invoke the blood libel. While on their “Links” page, there is a link to Press TV which has a history of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and is affiliated with Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

In another piece titled “Gaza, The Merchant Of Venice and the Nazification of Israel” the author, Chris Stone, says: “…yes, I will say it. Israel is becoming like a Nazi state”, and in turn links to articles claiming “The Zionist dream is based on the repeated slaughter of innocents.”

It is unacceptable for a community website and resource which purports to have a warm and fuzzy image to publish antisemitic articles that clearly breach the International Definition of Antisemitism, as adopted by our government and the Labour Party. Campaign Against Antisemitism condemns the use of the Dorset Eye as a cover for the dissemination of hateful material.

Steam, the global online gaming platform with almost 100 million users, including large numbers of children, has 11,903 users going under the name of Adolf Hitler, 3,611 users naming themselves after Osama Bin Laden, and countless others adopting online sobriquets based on genocidal and terrorist antisemitic namesakes. Searching for user names containing “Juden”, “Nazi” and similar terms also returns thousands upon thousands of brazenly antisemitic profiles.

Despite Steam’s online code of conduct prohibiting users from doing anything to “abuse” or “harass” others, and demanding that users do nothing to “inhibit any other user from using and enjoying Steam services”, antisemitic hatred seems to be rife on the platform, with Islamists and neo-Nazis even discussing what it might be like to kill Jews in real life.

Steam is owned by Valve Corporation. It is literally providing the online playground in which children spend hours interacting with each other and hardcore antisemites. Finding evidence of antisemitism on Steam could not be easier, and if we can find so much of it so easily, so can Valve’s online moderators. These antisemitic users should be banned.

You may wish to contact Valve’s CEO, Gabe Newell at [email protected], to politely ask him why Steam is so infested with brazen antisemites.

If you would like to join our Online Monitoring Unit and help to challenge gaming companies and other online platforms to stop this, please volunteer.

Carole Cadwalladr, a journalist for the Guardian and the Observer has a special interest in the colonisation of parts of the internet by the far-right. In December, she discovered that using Google to search for “Did the Holocaust happen?” returned search results from neo-Nazi Holocaust denial websites claiming that the Holocaust was a hoax perpetrated by Jews in order to enrich themselves and subjugate non-Jews. Cadwalladr was so horrified that she wrote about it, and paid Google more than £500 from her own pocket for advertisements to appear above the search results confirming that the Holocaust did happen, with links to websites describing the disgusting phenomenon of Holocaust denial.

Cadwalladr’s outrage was directed not only at those who published the Holocaust denial websites, but at Google itself for pretending that it has no control over search results whilst profiting from them. Google said that it does “not remove content from search results, except in very limited cases such as illegal content, malware and violations of our webmaster guidelines.” She wrote: “[Google is] profiting from Holocaust denial. Its algorithm is helping Stormfront reach new recruits – the next generation of Thomas Mairs and [Anders] Breiviks – all the while adding to its bottom line, its quarterly profits.”

Initially, Google refused to do anything about this, noting that their algorithms were automated and might return offensive results sometimes. But Cadwalladr kept going, and her story was picked up by other media outlets which joined Cadwalladr’s scrutiny of Google’s highly-irresponsible attitude.

Now Google has said that it is changing its algorithm. Confirming the change, a spokesman said: “This is a really challenging problem, and something we’re thinking deeply about in terms of how we can do a better job.” Now the Holocaust denial results have been demoted by Google, but as she pointed out on Twitter, similar searches are still returning far-right Holocaust denial websites.

The colonisation of parts of the internet by the far-right is an immense problem, and Cadwalladr’s achievement is impressive. She has achieved a measure of success where many have tried and failed. For example, in 2004 Google came under scrutiny because searching for “Jew” returned a website dedicated to promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories. Google refused to change its algorithm that time, instead bizarrely opting to display a message above the search results encouraging users not to trust the “offensive search results”.

Every day that this problem goes unsolved, Google is directing millions of users into the clutches of far-right propagandists. Hopefully they will be disgusted by what they see, but who knows how many children and suggestible adults are persuaded every day that Jews are conspiring to swindle and corrupt society?

Since last summer, #EverydayAntisemitism has been sharing the increasing number of antisemitic attacks against Jews around the world, many of which go unreported. Campaign Against Antisemitism has given the site a new design and we’d like your help keeping it up to date.

If you learn of an antisemitic attack, instead of suffering in silence and allowing some to question whether antisemitism is a real problem, you can post the details on everyday.antisemitism.org. Posts are automatically shared across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and e-mail once they have been approved.

You can get involved by sharing your experiences of antisemitism or helping to run the site.

Justice, justice, you shall pursue - צדק צדק תרדף
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