The head of an organization that combats online antisemitism is warning that the current social media dynamic is both unacceptable and dangerous.
Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, the executive director and founder of CyberWell, told CBN News the Oct. 7 terror attack in 2023 kicked off a slew of new assaults and attacks online, with her organization’s annual report painting a bleak picture.
“Because of the October 7th attacks, which was really the first successful hijacking of our social media platform by the terrorist group, Hamas, we’ve seen a repeated cycle of these flooding social media platforms with … violent content, literally documenting physical harm of Jewish people into these high engagement algorithms,” she said. “And that was true on the October 7th attacks. We also saw that repeat itself in the Amsterdam program that happened only a few months ago.”
Montemayor continued, “So we’ve seen this cycle of how there is really almost a fetishizing of physical harm towards Jewish people online.”
With the influx of this content streaming in, she said there’s “a very worrying narrative shift” at play, and explained how her organization is set up to track and tackle these issues.
“CyberWell is the first ever open database of online antisemitism,” Montemayor told CBN News. “We’re actually a non-profit initiative fully independent … working globally, directly with social media platforms to help better enforce and improve their digital policies or community standards and remove antisemitic content at scale.”
One issue Montemayor noted was rapper Kanye West’s recent social media activity about Adolf Hitler and commenting about Jewish people — something flagged as deeply disturbing.
She said it’s not the first time such rhetoric has come from West and said the behavior is an abuse of social media platforms and the algorithms.
“The glorification of Hitler is absolutely something beyond the pale,” she said, expressing concern that West’s comments were “amplified on … X.” “Kanye West has a 32 million followers strong account on Twitter, and, in total across social media, it’s well over 50 million accounts.”
Ultimately, Montemayor said such behavior creates an “echo chamber” for social media that spreads far beyond just West’s commentary. She believes social media outlets must do more to protect against such antics.
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“I think that we’re missing a bigger piece of the puzzle here, which is that the expectation should be on the social media platforms to enforce their policies at scale,” she said. “I really think that the bigger call to action here … to expect your social media platforms to enforce their policies at scale, because, to be frank with you, for the Jewish community, which is currently experiencing one of the worst onslaughts of antisemitism that it ever has, this is extremely dangerous.”
CyberWell steps into the gap to try and help social media companies navigate the difficult line between censorship and terms violations by flagging content, based on platform, that violates specific policies.
“We learn and study their digital policies,” Montemayor said. “And all of the analysis and data that we share directly with them is according to their own rules. So, we really approach it from a compliance perspective.”
Ultimately, she doesn’t believe West’s messaging on X is a form of free speech, specifically as it comes at a time when the Jewish people face such an onslaught of chaos and hatred. Montemayor believes West’s behavior creates a conundrum.
“This episode exactly challenges people to think: What is the difference between free speech and paid speech or free speech and algorithmically charged speech? When you think about free speech, do you really mean that anytime you write or say something it could reach 30 million people?” she said. “Probably not.”
Montemayor concluded with some advice for X and other social media companies, urging X to implement and enforce existing rules about hate speech. As for Meta, she also implored the company to reexamine the recent decision to roll back automatic filters pushing back on hate speech.
“If you looked at the language of Kanye West tweets, this is easily something that we can create automated tools to actually enforce digital policies at scale,” she said. “Every American knows that you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. Why? Because people are going to get hurt.”
Montemayor continued, “When it comes to the Jewish community, we’re already in a crowded theater and people are hitting us with live fire. So we need to remain vigilant about the expectation that these social media platforms enforce their policies at scale, especially when it comes to spreading the oldest form of hatred — antisemitism.”
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