The New York City (hereinafter: “NYC”) mayoral election signaled a pivotal moment for the United States, as residents prepared to elect a leader who will oversee the city’s extensive budget, America’s largest public education system, and one of the country’s most substantial police departments. Nonetheless, the race grew highly contentious, particularly between independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, who was seeking a political comeback after his 2021 resignation as New York governor, and Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Leading up to the election, CyberWell analyzed antisemitic narratives that surfaced in election-related discourse on social media. We found that most antisemitic content clustered around the two main candidates: Cuomo and Mamdani. These narratives echoed patterns from prior election cycles we studied, notably claims of Jewish political control, Israel-related antisemitism, and classic antisemitic tropes. Furthermore, our research revealed that antisemitic content related to the NYC mayoral election mirrored trends from previous election cycles that CyberWell analyzed, most notably accusations of Jewish political control, Israel-related antisemitism, and classic antisemitic tropes.
Methodology
CyberWell analyzed dozens of posts, of the hundreds that were flagged about the NYC mayoral election, that we identified as antisemitic, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. We identified antisemitic English-language posts on X, TikTok, and Meta’s platforms (Instagram and Facebook), with the majority of posts located on X (77%). This is not surprising, since X’s rules take the most permissive stance on election-related hate speech among major platforms.
Notably, TikTok, X, and Meta include policies that focus on elections. However, these policies focus solely on civic and election integrity, without explicit clauses addressing election-related hate speech — a gap that may contribute to inconsistent moderation of violative content. By contrast, YouTube explicitly prohibits election-related hate speech. Consistent with this approach, our dataset contains no YouTube examples, suggesting policy-aligned enforcement.
The most frequently observed narrative in this dataset corresponds with the second example of IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism (hereinafter: “IHRA example 2”):
“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.”
IHRA example 2 appeared in more than 90% of all posts in this dataset.
Although the verified sample dataset contained only dozens of examples, antisemitic hate speech still garnered 203,611 total views across the platforms above. For context, NYC’s population is approximately 8.5 million, underscoring the disproportionate reach and potential impact of this discourse.
Antisemitic Narratives
CyberWell identified three main antisemitic narratives related to the NYC mayoral election:
1. Accusing Jews of Political Control
The accusation that Jews exert political control over both the U.S. government and electoral processes, directly mirrors IHRA example 2 (described above). Our dataset revealed that this antisemitic narrative was the most prominent online in discourse surrounding the NYC mayoral election. Users on social media especially drew on this narrative to assert that Cuomo and Mamdani are Jewish assets.
In addition, users frequently used the term “Zionist” as a proxy for Jews and Israelis when promoting these antisemitic allegations about Jewish control. CyberWell’s analysis of online discourse surrounding the 2024 U.S. presidential election revealed that these trends are not isolated, and that antisemitic users often claim that election candidates are “Jewish/Zionist puppets” or that the United States is a “Zionist Occupied Government.”
This post on X with 52.9K views makes the antisemitic allegation that Jews control Mamdani. The user depicts Jews as evil beings who seek to “destroy Whites and/or Christians” and who “undermine White Christian nations,” by exerting control over Mamdani’s campaign.
On TikTok, this user applies the term “Zionist” as a proxy for Jews when promoting the allegation that Jews not only control Mamdani but that they also control the U.S. government more broadly. The user advances these antisemitic stereotypes when claiming that “this Zionist apparatus, the entire government at every level, bowing completely to Zionists […] they’re [Zionists are] fine with total, absolute domination” [00:21-00:40].
In this post below, another user employs similar allegations of Jewish control, but this time to target Cuomo. The user specifically invokes the antisemitic term “ZOG”, or Zionist Occupied Government — a white supremacist trope that claims national governments are secretly controlled by Jewish interests — to allege that Jews control the U.S. government.
2. Israel-Related Antisemitism
While the IHRA definition offers several examples of Israel-related antisemitism (examples 7-11), it is important to note that not all examples violate the platforms’ policies, since Israel is a state and therefore not considered a “protected category” in digital policy. However, posts that target national, religious, and ethnic groups like Israelis or Jews under the guise of Israel-related rhetoric — i.e., spreading hate toward protected groups — are considered policy violations. In addition, some platforms, like TikTok and Meta, treat the term “Zionist” as a proxy for Jews or Israelis when used to incite hate and consider such usage prohibited by their policies.
Regarding the NYC mayoral election, CyberWell found that users primarily employed Israel-related antisemitism to either respond to Cuomo’s support for Israel or endorse Mamdani. These trends mirror CyberWell’s findings from the 2024 U.K. general election that revealed how Israel-related antisemitism frequently targeted Jews and Israelis more generally in the context of election-related discourse. In both the 2024 U.K. general election and the NYC mayoral election, users employed this hateful rhetoric to also reinforce hateful narratives about Jewish control.
In this thread on X, a user responds to Cuomo’s post by insulting Israelis and characterizing them as “mass murderers, psychopaths, child killers [a modern recasting of the classic blood libel trope], war criminals, terrorists, and scumbag Zionist Israelis.” The user employs this hateful language both to condemn Cuomo for supporting Israel and to express endorsement of Mamdani.
On Instagram, this user claims that “Israel Runs the United States Government” and that Jewish political lobbies like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) control the 2025 NYC mayoral election. While these claims alone do not violate Meta’s Community Guidelines, the user reinforces these points by promoting Holocaust distortion and hateful stereotypes about Jews more broadly, which are considered hateful conduct policy violations. For instance, their caption states: “[…] this is how greedy many powerful Jewish people have proven to be, with the aforementioned family [The Rothschilds] being the reason behind the Holocaust (read The Rothschilds Funded The Holocaust) […] Money over human lives, morals, over everything […].” The user refers to the Rothschild family, a Jewish banking dynasty, to accuse Jews of orchestrating the Holocaust and to promote the antisemitic stereotype about Jews being financially powerful and immoral. As seen below, this user makes these points to reinforce their antisemitic narratives around Israeli and Jewish influence over the 2025 NYC mayoral election.
On TikTok, this user replies to claims surrounding Mamdani’s denial of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. In response to this subject, the user explicitly denies Israel’s right to exist and labels Jews as evil. The user’s caption states: “They [Jews] can’t even claim what he [Mamdani] actually said because it would make them look evil…because they [Jews] are evil.”
While denying Israel’s right to exist can be antisemitic, it does not constitute a policy violation on TikTok. However, this user’s vilification of Jews and Zionists does violate the platform’s Hate Speech and Hateful Behavior Community Guidelines.
3. Classic Antisemitic Tropes
Classic antisemitic tropes and imagery used to demonize Jews proliferated in the weeks leading up to the NYC mayoral election, notably in comments on X. The “Happy Merchant” cartoon that depicts a heavily stereotyped Jewish man greedily rubbing his hands together is one example of how users exploited antisemitic tropes to amplify hateful rhetoric about Jewish political control. Furthermore, in the context of election-related discussions online, users employed AI-generated videos to spread misinformation and blood libel conspiracy theories about Jews.
During the 2024 U.S. presidential election, CyberWell also observed a number of posts with classic antisemitic tropes, most notably featuring the “Happy Merchant” image.
On a thread discussing a recent meeting between Mamdani and Orthodox Jews, a user on X replied with a cartoon of a Black man with racist features and the Happy Merchant. The positioning of the Happy Merchant inside the Black man’s body implies the antisemitic stereotype of Jewish control, in this case regarding the NYC mayoral election. This post is a clear violation of X’s Hateful Conduct policy that addresses the use of hateful imagery to target protected categories.
In another comment on X, a user promotes the antisemitic blood libel narrative that falsely accuses Jews of killing Christians and using their blood for ritual purposes. The user specifically replies to a viral post featuring Mamdani sharing a meal with Orthodox Jews during his campaign. In their response, they employ X’s own AI tool, Grok, to regenerate this image into a video that portrays a crying young child serving a pitcher of blood to the table as the Orthodox Jewish men and Mamdani laugh. The user’s caption states: “They celebrated shortly after with goyim blood.” The user not only evokes this hateful imagery to characterize Jews as evil, but they also weaponize the neutral Jewish term “goyim” to suggest that Jews drink the blood of non-Jews in a celebratory manner.
From Evidence to Action
Election-related antisemitism is not a new phenomenon. In fact, CyberWell’s research revealed that in recent years, as major elections were held around the world, classic antisemitic accusations of undue Jewish control and conspiratorial power over elections and candidates have become increasingly visible and prevalent online.
While social media companies emphasize their important commitment to platforming free speech, they must also remain vigilant in their commitment to defending the line between political speech and potentially dangerous hate speech that could lead to real world harm when algorithmically charged for wide consumption. This commitment should not only be evident with clear trust and safety guidelines on election-related content, but also through active enforcement of those same policies and enhanced safety features. This is especially critical for minority communities, as well as candidates who are targeted based on their identity or beliefs.
Therefore, after consistent research on this topic, CyberWell calls on social media platforms to recognize and address the proliferation of online antisemitism during elections. By refining and enforcing their own policies consistently and transparently, platforms ensure that digital spaces remain a resource for fostering democracy, freedom of ideas, and debate — not hate platforms that chill diverse participation in elections or fuel hate crimes and social unrest during transitions of power.
