October 7 and the antisemitic flood
In Australia, it is now October 7, the first anniversary of the horrific Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel.
Dr Andre Oboler
It’s been a heart breaking and incredibly intense year. It is a year that put social cohesion and long term multi-faith and inter-communal relationships to the test, and too often found them falling short.
At the Online Hate Prevention Institute, we responded to October 7 and the subsequent war with a campaign of intensive monitoring across 10 social media platforms on both antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate. That resulting report on antisemitism (https://ohpi.org.au/afteroct7) and the report on anti-Muslim hate (https://ohpi.org.au/afteroctober/) and our findings have been presented around the world and helped to inform the thinking of governments, social media platforms, and individuals.
Today being the anniversary of October 7 our focus is rightly on the victims of the horrific terrorist attack that took place one year ago today, the hostages that remain in captivity, and antisemitism that followed and continues to surge at elevated levels.
To mark the anniveersary we have released our latest data on online antisemitism, covering the period since the end of data collection in our last report (during February this year) through to the end of September, one week ago.
The data shows that the prevalence of antisemitism remains more than 5 times higher than it was prior to October 7, but it has decreased 33% since the months immediately after October 7. The graph shows the nominal daily collection rate, the amount of antisemitism that would be collected on average in 8 hours of monitoring.
While it has decreased slightly on most platforms since the months immediately after October 7, a sharper decline was seen on far-right platforms, where the largest growth had been seen immediately after October 7. If these platforms are discounted, the reduction since the months immediately after October 7 is only 20%. It is a concern that one platform, Instagram, shows an increase in antisemitism.
Antisemitic content is becoming more antisemitic, with a greater number and variety of antisemitic tropes included in each antisemitic post. The most common form of antisemitism remains traditional antisemitism and 87.2% of all the antisemitic content gathered now included at least some element of traditional antisemitism. Next highest was Israel-related antisemitism, though the vast majority of this was simply traditional antisemitism that explicitly targeted at Israel, Israelis, or Zionists. While Holocaust-related content (denial, distortion, glorification, etc) remains about steady, incitement to violence continues to steadily increase. It is now at more than twice the level it was at prior to October 7.
Our detailed analysis looks at 27 categories of antisemitism and shows that the most common form was “Promoting traditional antisemitism such as blood libel and claims Jews killed Jesus”. The second most common form was “Describing Israel or Israelis using antisemitic words or imagery (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel)”. Today this also includes describing “Zionists” in this way. Whatever the word used to target Jews, the oldest forms of antisemitism are back with a vengeance.
See the full article (https://ohpi.org.au/october-7-and-antisemitism/) with the new data and a summary of our work on antisemitism since October 7. It includes campaign seeking to find 500 people to make a donation to show support for this work. Donations can be A$5 or higher, anyone can donate from anywhere in the world, and donations by Australian tax-payers are tax deductible. Please do show your support.
