Complicit Big Tech and Antisemitism

Key Findings:

This essay addresses the dangers of social media in the context of radicalization. 

Big Tech is complicit in the spread of antisemitism due to the fact that these platforms are largely uncontrolled and unmonitored – enabling hate speech and extreme rhetoric to spread rapidly and undetected. These platforms’ policies for filtering out hateful rhetoric are unsystematic and outdated. According to a 2021 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, 84% of antisemitic posts on leading social media platforms fail to be removed. 

Furthermore, there is no pressure on Big Tech from policymakers or advertising companies to tighten their control. In theory, Big Tech could work to find a middle-ground for this monitoring issue, but they are largely unwilling to do so without government incentive. Advertising companies are well aware that their more taboo content makes more money. Plus, policymakers and the general public are fairly protective of their First Amendment rights. 

Gab enabled Robert Bowers (a truck driver turned mass murderer), to meet like-minded people from extreme, antisemitic movements. The more Bowers promoted his ideology via the platform, the more support he found. It culminated in the killing of 11 Jews when “he reached his breaking point” and went to the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 to carry out a mass shooting. 

The author argues Facebook, Instagram and Twitter follow suit, although in a less extreme way.

Suggestions for policymakers at the state and federal levels: 

(1) Updating Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This act governs how all social media platforms function, but was enacted in 1996, prior to the creation of most platforms. It legally exempts platforms from almost close to any liability for “user generated content”. The author argues this act should now account for these platforms’ ability to proliferate hate and spread messages quickly.

(2) Big Tech should be required to disclose data on how they are enforcing content policies and what their policies actually are, which would hold them accountable in a traceable way.