Following the violent attacks on Israeli civilians by the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7, 2023, CyberWell detected a significant spike in Jew-hatred across social media platforms. Between October 7-24 alone our AI monitoring technology flagged double the amount of content as highly likely to be antisemitic than in a typical month. In this report, we outline narratives and trends that express clear antisemitic sentiment or overtly incite or glorify violence against Jews. Some are emergent trends directly linked to the October 7 massacre, while others we have seen time and again, surging during major events, such as global tragedies or when Israel is in the news. While reading through this report, two things should become apparent.
Social media companies are complicit in enabling the spread of Jew-hatred and incitement to and glorification of violence, which has led to real world psychological torture, harassment, and violence against Jews (and Muslims!) around the globe. They must be held to account for hosting this content, as the consequences for inadequate content moderation are dire.
On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas began a brutal attack against Israel that included significant targeted violence against civilians. This attack included: firing thousands of rockets from Gaza indiscriminately at millions of Israeli citizens, infiltrating sovereign Israeli territory, massacring over 1,400 civilians and brutalizing hundreds more, occupying towns, villages, and military facilities, holding Israeli civilians hostage within Israel, and kidnapping Israeli civilians and soldiers and bringing them across the border into Gaza as hostages. Following Hamas’ attack, Israel launched Operation Iron Swords, which has since escalated into a war.
As this conflict rages on, discussion on social media has ramped up, with many social media users “taking sides”. Posts include a wide variety of narratives, from glorification of and calls for violence against the Jewish people, to dehumanization and hateful stereotypes, to spreading harmful misinformation and denying the horrific brutality. Ahead, CyberWell breaks down some of these narratives and major trends that our monitoring technology is detecting across social media platforms.
CyberWell is a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating online antisemitism through driving the enforcement and improvement of community standards and hate speech policies across social media platforms. Through data, we aim to identify where policies are not being enforced and where they fail to protect Jewish users from harassment and hate. Our unique methodology consists of identifying antisemitic keywords, applying a specialized dictionary based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, and two rounds of human review. Our professional analysts are trained in the fields of antisemitism, linguistics, and digital policy, and vet each piece of content we collect both based on the IHRA definition and according to what, if any, policy that content violates.
CyberWell currently monitors Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and YouTube in both English and Arabic. We currently serve as trusted flaggers for both Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) and TikTok, enabling us to escalate policy-violating content and advise content moderation teams. Since October 7, we have submitted seven reports to Meta, X, and TikTok with additional information sent to Google. As part of our strategy to democratize data, since May 2022, CyberWell compiled the first ever open data platform of online antisemitic content. For more about our methodology, check out our policy guidelines.
Several important methodologies to note:
Absolute numbers of posts provided in this report may represent samples identified by social listening tools, or the number of posts identified by CyberWell’s AI monitoring technology as highly likely to be antisemitic.
“Potential reach” of key words or phrases is calculated through our social listening tools, which track forums and some social media platforms, based on a sample of posts with high engagement. These numbers offer an indication of pattern shifts but are not absolute.
As part of CyberWell’s ongoing monitoring efforts, our AI technology detected a more than 86% increase in content highly likely to be antisemitic across social media platforms. Between September 11 – October 6 CyberWell’s monitoring technology flagged 6,959 pieces of content as highly likely to be antisemitic. Between October 7-31 the amount of content flagged significantly increased to 12,949.
When analyzing text-based platforms, specifically X and Facebook, CyberWell’s
system also detected a sharp upswing in content flagged as highly likely to be antisemitic.
81% increase in content from 5,450 to 9,849
193% increase in content from 372 to 1,091
While a general increase in content is to be expected, the extreme increase on both platforms indicates that their AI and content moderation staff are overwhelmed and unable to process the high levels of posts flooding their systems.
Below is a list of some of the social media policies that were violated based on posts collected by CyberWell’s monitoring technology. It is by no means exhaustive but offers a general overview.
Facebook and Instagram - Meta Policies | Hate Speech; Violence and Incitement; and Dangerous Organizations and Individuals.
X Policies | Violent Speech; Violent Event Denial; Violent & Hateful Entities; and Hateful Conduct.
TikTok Policies | Violent and Hateful Organizations and Individual; Hate Speech and Hateful Behaviors; and Violent Behaviors and Criminal Activities.
English Arabic
| Sept 19 – Oct 6 | Oct 7 – 24 | Sept 19 – Oct 6 | Oct 7 – 24 | |
| Jew | Jews | Protocols of the Elders of Zion | Protocols of the Elders of Zion | |
| Money | Israel | Jewish domination | ||
| TheNoticing | Zionist-Occupied Government | Jewish control | ||
| Jews killed Jesus | Jews killed Jesus | |||
| Satanic Pedophile | Synagogue of Satan | |||
| Masonic | ||||
CyberWell noted a shifting from content containing specific antisemitic tropes such as Jews being money obsessed and sexually deviant to larger allegations such as Jews exerting global domination and control. This was noted in both English and Arabic.
| Money + Jew | Jews killed Jesus |
| #TheNoticing | enemy] + [Jews العدو + اليهود |
| Economy + Jew | #TheNoticing |
| #Rothschild | Money + Jew |
| enemy] + [Jews العدو + اليهود | اليهود + الشيطان [Jews AND devil] |
| devil] + [Jews اليهود+ الشيطان | Zionist Occupied Government |
| Jews killed Jesus | #Rothschild |
| Zionist Occupied Government | اليهود ببجي [PUBG the Jews] |
| Israhell | اليهود سيطرة [Jewish control] |
| بروتوكولات حكماء صهيون
[Protocols of the Elders of Zion] |
خيبر خيبر يا يهود
[Khaybar Khaybar Jews] |
video game) and Khaybar Khaybar Jews (a religious-based antisemitic phrase calling for the murder of the Jewish people).
NOTE: This data is based on keywords that CyberWell has identified as highly likely to accompany antisemitic content. Not every post ends up promoting the narrative mentioned, but it does provide an indication as to emerging trends.
The top trending hashtags that our monitoring technology identified as highly likely to be antisemitic and that express support for the violent events committed against Israeli civilians in Arabic and English include:
طوفان_الاقصى# [Al-Aqsa Storm] #TaufanAlAqsa #AlAqsaflood
Al-Aqsa Storm/Flood is the name that Hamas labeled their incursion into Israel and massacre of civilians. Social media posts using these hashtags and phrases in English and in Arabic are highly likely to be in support of these actions, though it is important to note that some posts are simply reporting on the attack.
Monitoring these terms is critical in order to identify and remove incitement to and glorification of violence. Often these hashtags and phrases are used along with additional content, and glorification of violence can be depicted through images and/or videos of dead bodies, hostages, and/or people running to escape the attacks, along with emojis and phrases expressing support, appreciation, or excitement for the violent acts.
In this video, the dead body of an Israeli soldier is stepped on, while the social media user who stitched the video smiles. The post celebrates the death of the soldier and abuse of his body and includes the hashtag in Arabic – Al-Aqsa Storm. This post alone received 21.9K views and, despite being reported to X, was still online as of Oct 30.
صهاينة/يهود AND #طوفان_الأقصى
Examples of Phrases:
" فرضو قيود على حسابي في الفيسبوك حين بننشر على الأقصى"
"اصبح هاشتاج طوفان_الأقصى مخالف لمعايير مجتمعنا"
Please Note! Users posting the two phrases above, among others, and “complaining” about social media platform restrictions are more likely to post violating content.
This is used in a deliberate effort to trick AI monitoring.
In this post, the user identifies Hamas, a known terror organization, by name and refers to the violent attack against civilians as a “remontada”. Remontada is the Spanish word for “comeback” and is often used by sports fans when their team gets ahead after being behind. Following the Oct 7 attacks, some social media users used this word to celebrate the violent acts.
Trend 1: PUBG + Jews | الببجي + يهود
PUBG refers to PUBG: Battlegrounds, a violent shooting video game. This phrase is a quote from a religious sermon by Mahmoud al-Hasanat who, as of October 30, has a following of:
TikTok | 9.6 million followers
Instagram | 5.4 million followers
Facebook | 4 million followers
YouTube | 618K followers
X (formerly Twitter) | 67K followers (2 accounts combined following)
CyberWell has been tracking al-Hasanat since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and his accounts continue to grow by thousands of followers weekly.
In 2020 al-Hasanat delivered a famous sermon in which he said the following: “They say this generation is the PUBG generation, right? But open the borders for them, and by God, they will make PUBG to the Jews.”
Following the October 7 massacre, the sermon went viral, with users editing this component and overlaying the voice clip with videos of Hamas paragliders, videos from the PUBG game with simulated shooting, and videos displaying weapons.
According to CyberWell’s AI tech, the combination of the terms “الببجي” [PUBG] AND “يهود” [Jews] OR images of armed terrorists/gliders are highly likely to include violent content calling for harm against the Jewish people.
Though al-Hasanat has since removed the original sermon from his social media channels, videos continue to circulate in which he refers to that sermon. In one such video he says “I told you one day: ‘Try it and open the borders to them. They will make PUBG on the Jews.’ Today, what was done to the Jews… Whoever made PUBG must learn from today. He must learn from Gaza’s heroes.”
In this post, the social media user questions if the “PUBG generation” can play PUBG with the Jews and win, implying shooting Jews to death, and expresses excitement through the exclamation mark emoji. It includes the Arabic hashtag “Friday of al-Aqsa storm” and gained over 29.7K views.
Trend 2: Open the Borders for Us | افتحو_لنا_الحدود#
This trend originates from the same sermon by Mahmoud al-Hasanat as “PUBG the Jews”. This recent hashtag calls for Palestinians and Muslims everywhere to join in the Palestinian uprising and the violent attacks. It is being used in this context to refer to the breaking down of the border fence between Israel and Gaza by Hamas forces on October 7.
As of October 29, CyberWell’s social listening tools detected that this hashtag has a potential reach of 4.2 million.
Trend 3: #HitlerWasRight
Through our social listening tools, in the weeks following the October 7 massacre by Hamas, CyberWell detected a 1,600% surge in the hashtag #HitlerWasRight with a potential reach of 25 million users. In comparison, during the two weeks prior, #HitlerWasRight had a potential reach of “just” 300,000.
This hashtag and phrase tends to spike during major world events involving Jews or Israel. In October of 2022 there was one such surge following Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) antisemitic tirades.
In Arabic, in the two weeks leading up to October 7th, our social listening tool detected just 3 posts with the phrase, حق على كان هتلر [Hitler was right], with a reach of 146k.
In the following two weeks, the number of posts increased by 29,000%, with the reach increasing to 465,000.
As the absolute number of posts grew significantly but the reach did not grow at a proportional rate, it is likely that the term is being de-amplified. However, a potential reach of almost half a million viewers is still too much for such a disgusting trend that is in clear violation of community standards.
Furthermore, on October 17 and 18 alone, and following the al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, this Arabic phrase saw a spike of 146%.
This post includes the hashtag #hitlerwasright along with an image of Hitler holding a bar of soap. It is a common myth that fat was taken from the corpses of the Jews who were murdered and turned into soap during the Holocaust, and CyberWell often sees antisemitic posts calling for Jews to be turned into soap in reference to this myth.
The following key phrases and terms are rooted in religious texts and narratives and tend to spike during major global events in general. Over the last month since October 7, CyberWell’s monitoring tech has detected spikes in the following religious-based narratives.
Trend 4: Khaybar Khaybar Jews | يهود يا خيبر خيبر
This violent chant “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return” has its roots from the seventh century battles between the prophet Mohammad and the Jews in the region, following which the Jews were defeated. Since these battles resulted in the mass slaughter of Jews, using this slogan today along with images of armed individuals, typically is a call to violence against Jews as a collective or, within the Palestinian-Israel conflict, in support of the Palestinian cause against Israel/ the Jewish people.
Since October 7 this phrase in Arabic has gained a potential reach of 596 million.
Trend 5: Jews Killed Jesus
This religious-based antisemitic claim alleges that a bloodthirsty mob of Jews were directly responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. It continues to crop up throughout history, despite being renounced by various churches and religious bodies over the last century. Social media posts using this phrase are typically highly likely to be antisemitic, and CyberWell’s monitoring AI detected a significant spike in the use of this phrase in the days following the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians.
CyberWell compared the number of flagged posts from X containing “Jews killed Jesus” in the 9 days before the Hamas attack (September 28 – October 6, 2023) and during the first 9 days of the conflict (October 7-15, 2023).
On X alone, “Jew killed Jesus” increased by more than 1,000%.
Trend 6: Houthi Slogan | Curse on the Jews
“Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam”
This violent and antisemitic slogan is chanted by the Houthi religious group in Yemen. CyberWell’s AI tech specifically monitors for the portion including “Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews”. Between September 19 – October 24, this segment gained a potential reach of over 6 million, with spikes on October 7 and on October 18, the day after the al-Ahli hospital explosion and one day prior to the missile attack on Israel launched from Yemen on October 19.
Recommendations
Throughout the Israel-Hamas War, CyberWell’s monitoring AI has detected a number of classic antisemitic tropes making the rounds across social media platforms. While the narratives reflected below can be found online on an ongoing basis, they all experienced a significant surge over the last few weeks since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.
The IHRA working definition of antisemitism Example 2 includes: “Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”
Trend 7: Dehumanizing Content | Jews as dogs/pigs/rats/disease
CyberWell detected a number of posts across social media platforms that refer to Jews as various animals, diseases, and parasites. Posts referring to Jews as pigs in particular, but also monkeys, dogs, and other animals, aim to dehumanize the Jewish people as a whole.
The phrase “اليهود الخنازير ” [the Jewish pigs] gained a potential reach of over 500K in the last week of October alone.
This post includes a variety of antisemitic narratives, including referring to Jews as monkeys and pigs. It further refers to a common conspiracy theory linking Jews with Freemasons, which we delve into in this report. Finally, referring to Jews as Satan or being part of a Synagogue of Satan is a common theme recently popularized following Ye’s 2022 antisemitic tirades.
Trend 8: Jews as the Enemy
Between October 7-15, 2023, CyberWell’s monitoring technology detected a sharp increase in Arabic of the combination of “Jews” and “enemy” within the posts flagged as highly likely to be antisemitic.
We compared the number of flagged posts from X containing these specific terms in the 9 days before the Hamas attack (September 28 – October 6, 2023) and during the first 9 days of the conflict (October 7-15, 2023).
The prevalence of the combination “يهود” AND “عدو” [“Jews” AND “enemy”] increased by more than 1,000%.
Trend 9: Jews Control Global Politics
Jews controlling global politics is a trope CyberWell detects on an ongoing basis. This often is reflected on social media through the hashtag #ZOG or Zionist Occupied Government. Between October 7-15 our monitoring tech flagged posts including the phrase “Zionist occupied government” [ZOG] at an increased rate of 930% on X alone.
Trend 10: #TheNoticing
The antisemitic hashtag #TheNoticing was consistently in use at a stable rate over the 90 days prior to the war, with a potential reach of over 104 million in the 30 days following October 7 across various forums and social media platforms.
CyberWell regularly monitors #TheNoticing and often sees spikes in this hateful hashtag during major world events and tragedies as antisemites and conspiracy theorists seek to place the blame on the Jewish people. This antisemitic hashtag continues to be a spreader of a hateful ideology calling for the public to “wake up” to the “truth”. This “truth” entails a number of conspiracy theories about Jewish people infiltrating key global leadership positions in an effort for world domination, a classic antisemitic conspiracy with a modern take. Through CyberWell’s ongoing efforts to alert social media platforms to this harmful phenomenon, we have achieved moderate success in getting this hashtag blocked from being searchable on Facebook. However, there is far more that social media platforms can do to monitor for and remove this hateful narrative.
Recommendations
All five social media platforms that CyberWell monitors have policies in place against the support, praise, or glorification of known terrorist organizations and/or individuals associated with them. Unfortunately, these policies are not enforced as effectively as they should be, and furthermore, social media platforms are slow to add emergent organizations and named attacks to their AI monitoring. Following the Hamas attacks on October 7, CyberWell detected a spike in support for Hamas and its military wing, al- Qassam brigades, in particular. It is important to note that even though not all platforms’ policies include Hamas in their list of dangerous terror organization directly, social media platforms were generally more responsive than average in removing posts that CyberWell reported when those posts directly referred to Hamas. However, the spikes in support and glorification of violent dangerous organizations and affiliated individuals, such as Hamas, must be monitored more effectively.
For example, over the last 30 days our social listening tools detected the phrase القسام ابطال | al-Qassam heroes in 6.7K Tweets alone, with a potential reach of 14 million.
Note that support and glorification can be expressed through a variety of methods. Examples include:
*Abu Ubaydah is the spokesperson for the al-Qassam brigades
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas War, disinformation and misinformation have spread through social media channels. Some of the misinformation claims that violent events committed by Hamas did not occur, such as the murder of babies and the slaughter of over 260 civilians at a music festival, which violates the community standards for all platforms that CyberWell monitors. Other forms of misinformation include claims that Israel has taken actions that it has not, such as the use of illegal weapons or carrying out specific attacks that did not occur while using video footage shot in other locations. Wading through the flood of misleading and outright incorrect information is a challenge, with new narratives cropping up regularly. This list includes a few of the major trends that CyberWell detected but is by no means exhaustive.
Al-Ahli Arab Hospital Explosion
The most prominent example of the viral spread of misinformation was the explosion at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. Based on claims from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, news outlets initially reported the explosion as an Israeli airstrike with 500 civilians killed, though Israel denied the allegation. Online, there was an outpouring of rage directed at Israel — even going so far as to call for and justify violence against not just Israelis, but Jews everywhere. In the days following, independent experts confirmed
that the damage was caused by a failed Islamic Jihad missile and that the death toll was significantly less. But the repercussions of this viral surge of disinformation were far- reaching. Online, social media users continue to place blame squarely on Israel’s shoulders, with many calling for death to Jews, while offline antisemitic hate crimes surged, protesters came out in force, and peace talks were canceled.
Denial of Violence Against Civilians
CyberWell detected a number of videos and images shared widely across social media platforms that not only spread misinformation, but also denied the violent attacks that occurred at the hands of the Hamas terrorists, including the murder of over 260 civilians at the Nova desert party and the murder of babies in general. Some posts claimed that photos released by the Israeli government were AI generated, while others claimed that images depicting murdered Israeli civilians were actually the bodies of Hamas fighters and offered “proof” of this allegation. Furthermore, narratives often seen by those denying entirely or distorting the scale of the Holocaust spread quickly, such as the claim that Jews control the media and therefore were able to lie about the massacre, or that Jews are sly and cunning and manipulate the public by pretending to be victims whiles secretly being the aggressors. These themes were expressed in text, but also through cartoons and videos as well.
This post received 3,888 views, 14 likes, and 8 reposts as of October 30.
Recommendations
Identify and remove posts that:
The digital space is now a battleground where people sitting behind screens can create an environment that predisposes the general public to either condemn, celebrate or even promote real-world violence. Despite the Jewish community’s repeated attempts to highlight the problem, online Jew-hatred has been rising for years, with social media platforms not doing enough despite their promises to protect their users.
On October 7 and in the weeks following there was not sufficient infrastructure to defend against mass mobilization of antisemitic vitriol, with hashtags, key terms, images, videos, narratives, and networks primed to obfuscate the truth and spread hate.
The Israeli and global Jewish community is forever altered. For our part, CyberWell will continue to monitor emergent trends and alert both social media platforms and the public as they arise. We will apply pressure, with data, proving that online hate leads to real- world violence and that the Hamas attacks sparked a chain reaction of online antisemitism leading to a rise in global violence against the Jewish community.
To help us in our work, if you see something that you feel should be brought to our attention, report it both to the social media platform itself and to us through this form. We will analyze it and escalate it through our partnerships, doing our best to ensure a safer digital future for the Jewish people and all other users.
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