antisemitism
Latest
Twitter and Instagram lock Kanye West's accounts after a weekend of antisemitic posts
Kanye West’s return to Twitter has been short-lived.
Twitter says it will remove Holocaust denial tweets
Facebook enacted a similar ban earlier this week.
Facebook finally bans Holocaust denial content
The company updated its hate speech policy to prohibit such material.
Hackers hit The Wall Street Journal in support of PewDiePie
Hackers targeted The Wall Street Journal earlier today, posting a fake apology in support of PewDiePie. In a sponsored post, the hackers published a note that said the publication wanted to apologize to the YouTuber and "due to misrepresentation" by its journalists The Wall Street Journal would be sponsoring PewDiePie. The Wall Street Journal took down the page and a spokesperson told The Verge that the company would be investigating the incident. "The page was owned by WSJ. Custom Solutions, a unit of the advertising arm, which is not affiliated with The Wall Street Journal newsroom," said the representative.
Racists use app to trick celebrities into endorsing anti-Semitic views
White supremacists have been using mobile apps to trick stars into spreading hate speech online. BuzzFeed News has learned that two racist YouTubers have used Cameo, an app that lets you pay for personalized celebrity messages, to make NFL legend Brett Favre, rapper Soulja Boy and actor Andy Dick unwittingly record anti-Semitic messages that were promptly used for hateful videos. The duo paid significant sums (as much as $500 for Favre) and used coded language that sounded benign on the surface, but included coded language that anti-Jewish groups would immediately recognize.
Vandal renames NYC 'Jewtropolis' on Snapchat and other apps
An instance of anti-semitic digital vandalism appears to be affecting platforms such as Snapchat, CitiBike, Jump Bike, Zillow and StreetEasy, with New York City showing up as "Jewtropolis" on their maps. Gizmodo reports that zooming in and out on Snapchat's Snap Map can make the city switch between New York City and "Jewtropolis," but that not all users of these platforms are seeing the vandalized name. The problem appears to be not with the platforms themselves but with Mapbox, a mapping software used by the companies.
Microsoft threatened to unplug Gab over anti-Semitic posts
After Milo Yiannopoulos got banned from Twitter, he and his followers moved to Gab, a social network priding itself on free speech that has become popular with conservatives and the alt-right. But it appears the platform's hosting provider Microsoft Azure isn't okay with the most extreme views appearing on Gab. Today, the tech giant gave the site two days to pull two posts with anti-Semitic content or it would stop serving it, which could have taken Gab down for weeks or months. They were soon deleted by the individual who made the posts: Far-right Senate candidate Patrick Little.
Researchers find Amazon is selling white supremacist products
A pair of watchdog groups reported that despite Amazon's policy against the sale of racist or 'hatred-glorifying' goods on its platforms, white supremacist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and homophobic goods are still sold on the sites. That allegedly includes products in its online store along with material on its publishing and music outlets.
Google search showed ‘Nazism’ as a California Republican Party ideology
As California gears up for its primary, many of the state's Republicans are fuming over how Google described their party in its search results. Those searching for "California Republicans" or "California Republican Party" would have found a result that listed "Nazism" as one of the party's ideologies along with "Conservatism," "Market liberalism," "Fiscal conservatism" and "Green conservatism." Vice News spotted the listing and Google removed the label following a query from the publication.
Twitter also has a problem with ads targeted towards hate speech
ProPublica found that Facebook allows ads to be targeted at users based on antisemitic keywords and BuzzFeed has reported that Google similarly allows ads to be targeted through racist and hateful phrases. So, it probably shouldn't be a surprise at this point that it turns out Twitter is laden with similar issues.
Google has targeted ads based on hate speech, too
Yesterday, ProPublica released a report on its investigation into the sorts of ad categories Facebook makes available to advertisers. It found that the website allowed it to target ads to users based on categories like "Jew hater" and "How to burn jews" among other antisemitic options. Today, BuzzFeed reports that Google has a similar problem.
Facebook allowed advertisers to target anti-Semites
As further proof that the Facebook ad network needs a lot of work, ProPublica has discovered that it allowed advertisers to target anti-Semites. When you buy ads on Facebook, the system prompts you to add targeted categories, which are real keywords or phrases people use on their profiles. Well, ProPublica has proven that the ad network recognizes anti-Semitic sentiments from users' profiles as valid ad categories, including "Jew hater," "How to burn jews," "Nazi Party," "Hitler did nothing wrong" and "German Schutzstaffel." Since the network's algorithm handles ad purchases from start to finish with no human input, ProPublica was able to get the anti-Semitic ads it purchased for its investigation approved within 15 minutes.
Maker Studios parts ways with Pewdiepie after anti-Semitic jokes
Felix "Pewdiepie" Kjellberg's actions have cost him a business partner: Disney's Maker Studios. While the YouTube personality claimed a video published on January 11th was nothing more than a joke, the House of Mouse doesn't agree according to The Wall Street Journal. In the clip, Kjellberg hired a pair of Indian men from quick-task service Fiverr to hold up a banner that said "Death to all Jews."
