US/World News

Study reveals 912% increase in antisemitic content on TikTok

(JNS) During a symposium about online antisemitism sponsored by the U.S. State Department last year, a representative from the social-media platform TikTok assured that his company was working to combat hate. Speaking in October 2020, Jeff Collins said TikTok’s mission is “to inspire and bring joy. … There’s no place for hate on TikTok, and we are investing a lot in people and tech to really get this right.” The goal, stated Collins, was to “disrupt the ecosystem of hate” by limiting the “discoverability” of such content. His comments coincided with a change in the platform’s terms of use designed to prevent the spread of hate online.

Yet despite these efforts, a study out of Israel found a staggering 912 percent increase in antisemitic comments and a nearly 1,400 percent rise of antisemitic user names on the social-media platform as compared to 2020–representing a rise in actual numbers from 41 to 415, and from four to 59, respectively, from 2020 to 2021. Conducted jointly by Gabriel Weinmann, a professor at the University of Haifa, and Natalie Masri, a research assistant at IDC Herzliya’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism, the study found a significant Jew-hatred on the site, which is especially popular with younger people. More than 40 percent of the site’s 1.2 billion users are between the ages of 16 and 24.

“TikTok claims on its homepage that it is ‘raw, real and without boundaries,’ ” the study concluded. “But the lack of boundaries, combined with the growing success of this platform, makes it an ideal virtual home for hate speech and extremist content.”

It is the second recent report to examine Jew-hatred on TikTok.

Main Photo: Logo of the social network application Tik Tok on the screen of a phone. (Martin Bureau/AFP via Getty Images)

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