TEL AVIV – CyberWell, a trusted partner of Meta (Facebook, Instagram and Threads), TikTok and YouTube, and a leading nonprofit in digital compliance solutions for hateful content, alerted social media platforms to an antisemitic trend using Tengu imagery from Japanese folklore to demonize Jews. The trend, which has circulated online since at least 2023, has gained renewed visibility and engagement in recent weeks across Meta, TikTok and X, including posts in English, French and Farsi.
Tengu are supernatural beings from Japanese folklore commonly depicted with red faces, long noses, and small box-like hats. Users spreading antisemitism have appropriated the figures to draw comparisons with Jews, using their exaggerated features to promote stereotypes about Jewish appearance while invoking depictions of Tengu as demonic beings to portray Jews as evil, warmongering, and responsible for kidnapping children.
The posts often place Tengu images alongside photographs of visibly Orthodox Jews or the “Happy Merchant,” a well-known antisemitic caricature. One Instagram post received more than 40,000 likes, while an X post amplifying the comparison received more than 249,000 views.
In the vast majority of posts identified by CyberWell, the words “Jew” or “Jewish” did not appear. Instead, users relied on visual comparisons and established antisemitic imagery to communicate their message, potentially allowing the content to evade systems that rely heavily on text.
“Comparing Jews to evil demons through this use of Japanese imagery is a grotesque form of dehumanization, with roots in religious antisemitism,” explained CyberWell CEO & Founder Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor. “Repeat exposure to the dehumanization of Jews through powerful algorithmically driven platforms has seeded the conditions in which hostility, hatred, discrimination, and even violence against Jews are increasingly justified and commonplace today. The Holocaust did not begin with mass murder, but with years of propaganda, discrimination and systematic state-sponsored dehumanization of Jews. The increasingly open anti-Jewish vitriol that CyberWell has tracked online has similarly desensitized many of our most open societies to antisemitism.”
CyberWell said the content violates Meta’s, TikTok’s, and X’s own policies, including rules against dehumanizing comparisons, harmful stereotypes, and portraying protected groups as inherently dangerous.
The Tengu trend follows a separate antisemitic narrative involving Japanese cultural references previously identified by CyberWell, in which antisemites appropriated “Celestial Dragon,” a reference to the Japanese manga series One Piece, to promote conspiracy theories about Jewish wealth, power and global control. Together, the Tengu and Celestial Dragon trends illustrate how otherwise non-antisemitic cultural references can be appropriated to give longstanding antisemitic narratives new forms.
“Especially with the widespread adoption of AI and the rise of algo-speak, antisemites do not need to use the word ‘Jew’ to create antisemitic content. Much of the hate content is designed to evade content moderation systems. Technology must adapt,” added Cohen Montemayor. “As platforms increasingly rely on AI-based enforcement, their systems must recognize the images and visual cues that make coded content antisemitic. Expert partners who understand how antisemitism evolves across languages, cultures and contexts can help platforms identify emerging forms of Jew-hatred before they spread.”
CyberWell called on social media platforms to strengthen AI-based detection of visually coded antisemitic content, improve detection of recurring antisemitic stereotypes, apply their policies consistently and continue working with organizations that specialize in online hate. CyberWell said early identification of emerging antisemitic trends remains critical to preventing new forms of online hate from spilling over from the digital universe into the physical world.
CyberWell is an independent, tech-based nonprofit combating the spread of antisemitism online, operating globally. Its AI-powered technologies monitor social media in English and Arabic for content promoting antisemitism, Holocaust denial and incitement to violence against Jews and their allies based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Its analysts review and report this content to platform moderators and index verified posts in the first-ever open database of antisemitic social media posts, cataloging it openly for transparency at app.cyberwell.org. Through partnerships, education and real-time alerts, CyberWell partners with social media platforms and digital service companies to help them enforce their policies more effectively, promoting proactive steps against online Jew-hate. For more information, visit cyberwell.org.
