EXCLUSIVE: Minister warns social media sites to act on Jew-hate

CST chief executive Mark Gardner described levels of anti-Jewish hatred in Britain as “worse than anything seen in recent decades”.

The intervention by the Culture Secretary also follows a report by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate which detailed how 84 per cent of posts — including Holocaust denial, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and even incitement to violence against Jews — remained on social media sites even after they had been reported.

The CCDH identified 714 antisemitic posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok and reported them to moderators. Researchers then checked if they remained online after six weeks.

Across all sites, 84 per cent of the posts were still up. On Facebook and Twitter 90 per cent of the posts remained. It total, the 714 posts had been viewed 7.3 million times.

A separate report last week by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, supported by the CST, also found that Twitter failed to take down 60 per cent of posts it complained about — including Holocaust denial and tweets declaring “Hitler was right”.

The government’s Online Safety Bill will place a legal duty of care on social media companies to protect all users if it becomes law.

Under the crackdown, regulator Ofcom would have the power to issue what are believed to be the biggest fines in the world against online platforms who do not protect users from abuse. In the worst cases, sites could even be prevented from operating.

Mr Dowden told the JC: “These reports of vile antisemitic abuse spreading freely on social media platforms and fuelling hate are deeply disturbing.

“We are introducing some of the toughest laws in the world to compel these firms to remove abusive content and if they fail to do so they will face huge fines or their sites could be blocked.”

However Mr Dowden told the JC he not want social media giants to wait for legislation, due to come into force next year, before taking tougher action.

He said: “They must face up to their responsibilities, clean up their sites immediately and need not wait until they are forced to act by the government.

“I will continue to work closely with community leaders to hold the feet of social media companies to the fire so they deliver on their promises.”

His comments came on the day the CST revealed a record 1,308 antisemitic incidents in the first six months of the year.

Cases involving schools, students and teachers soared from 22 in the first six months of 2020 to 130 in the first half of this year – an increase of 491 per cent.

The CST said it was possible the loosening of restrictions together with May’s 11-day conflict between Israel and Gaza had “fed into the extent of the rise in antisemitic incident reports during this period”.

There were 89 violent incidents, representing a 68 per cent increase year on year. Most were assaults but two involved “extreme violence”. There were also 56 incidents related to damage or desecration to Jewish property.

DCC Mark Hamilton, the National Policing Lead for hate crime, described the findings as “shocking but sadly not surprising.”

“We will continue to work closely with the CST in the future, to ensure that the UK is a safe place for Jewish communities to live,” he said.

Social media companies have insisted they are doing more to crackdown on abuse.

Facebook, which also owns Instagram, has said it was taking down 15 times the amount of hate speech that it was in 2017 – with 97 per cent found before it was reported.

YouTube said it had made progress in removing hate speech and TikTok said it would remove accounts that violated its policies.

Following the CCDH report, Twitter condemned antisemitism and said rule enforcement on its site was a “top priority” but conceded there was “more to do”.

With reporting by Mathilde Frot