- Twitter recently changed its Hateful Conduct policy and took steps to properly identify anti-Israel media outlets to help combat rising antisemitism on the platform but Jewish advocates are unsure how much effect the changes will truly have.
- The updated policy says “targeting individuals or groups” by referring to such things as “lynchings” or “genocide” is prohibited and included the Holocaust as an example of language that will be flagged by the company.
- “[W]hile I applaud Twitter for taking these important steps that may be helpful in the short term, the fact that Twitter was so far behind on this issue means this must just be a next step and not a last step for the foreseeable future,” Israel Bitton, president of Americans Against Antisemitism, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Twitter recently made several changes to its policies that may help combat antisemitism on the platform, but Jewish advocates have mixed feelings about the results.
Twitter’s recently revised hate speech policy gained a lot of attention for removing prohibitions that “include[d] targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” The policy, updated on April 8, was also changed to include references to anti-Jewish rhetoric and activity that would constitute hate speech, and advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they had conflicting feelings about the changes. (RELATED: Annual Psychology Conference Invites Bevy Of Anti-Israel Commentators)
Israel Bitton, executive director of Americans Against Antisemitism, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the changes were “a big step in the right direction” but that more was needed.
“There’s no doubt that the recent updates to Twitter’s Hateful Conduct Policy and account labeling is a big step in the right direction, but it’s also long overdue so that Twitter may still be behind the ball on effectively countering viral hatred—and that’s not even accounting for how AI may disrupt this tug-of-war,” Bitton said.
The updated policy explains that “targeting individuals or groups” by referring to things such as “lynchings” or “genocide” is prohibited and included the Holocaust as an example. Additionally, the new policy bans the use of “hateful imagery” and points to the Nazi swastika as imagery that would violate the updated conduct rules.
“Images altered to include hateful symbols or references to a mass murder that targeted a protected category, e.g., manipulating images of individuals to include yellow Star of David badges, in reference to the Holocaust” are prohibited, according to the policy.
Pro-Israel demonstrators attend a rally denouncing antisemitism and antisemitic attacks, in lower Manhattan, New York on May 23, 2021. (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)
Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told the DCNF that while the platform does have a loud antisemitic presence, the policy also conflicts with the First Amendment.
“On the one hand, they have suppressed free expression of controversial speech, especially when it has come from conservatives,” Marcus said. “On the other hand, they have permitted all kinds of hateful speech, including Holocaust Denial. Twitter’s vague new policy won’t fix either problem: it will give little assurance to those whose speech, while forceful, is legitimate. On the other hand, it may permit lots of inappropriate, hateful activity from continuing. Twitter should be very specific about Jew-hatred, calling out Holocaust Denial specifically and using the IHRA Working Definition of Anti-Semitism to identify hateful speech.”
The platform also changed labels on several media accounts accused of being used to promote a government or state’s agenda, including the English account for Al-Jazeera, a Qatari outlet, which was labeled as “government-funded media,” defined as “outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,” according to Twitter’s policy. Al-Jazeera is known for its anti-Israel and often antisemitic criticism of the Jewish state and has also been tied to the terrorist group Hamas, in addition to glorifying terrorism in its coverage, according to Canary Mission.
Despite Twitter’s attempts to remove antisemitism from its platform, some things have remained unaddressed, such as the ability of groups like the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization since 2014, to promote their hatred of Israel on Twitter Spaces as they did earlier this year. PIJ Deputy Secretary General Ziyad al-Nakhalah, who is responsible for helping orchestrate terrorist attacks against Israel, was allowed to be a featured guest on a Lebanese news channel Al-Mayadeen, which is considered the “mouthpiece” of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, where he discussed his hopes to “abduct Israeli soldiers.”
Bitton explained to the DCNF that he was pleased with Twitter’s attempts to stop Jew hatred but noted the long way the platform still has to go.
“It’s great that Twitter finally implemented the obvious when it comes to banning the use of hate symbols like the swastika or the Holocaust to wish someone harm and that Al Jazeera was finally appropriately labeled (although ‘government propaganda’ would have been more accurate) but Twitter has essentially left ‘anti-Zionism’—a clever euphemism for Jew hatred—which is used to no lesser degree as a justification to wish Jews harm entirely unaddressed,” Bitton said. “Thus, while I applaud Twitter for taking these important steps that may be helpful in the short term, the fact that Twitter was so far behind on this issue means this must just be a next step and not a last step for the foreseeable future.”
Twitter did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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