L5: antisemitism - conspiracy theory blueprint and weaponized label

why this topic?

• Disinformation

• Blueprint for conspiracy theories

• Weaponized labels

• Antisemitism is controversial, contested

Antisemitism forms

• Prejudice

• Discrimination

• Conspiracy theory

• Dehumanization

• Genocide

google trends in antisemitism

• Peaks

  • 7 October 2023

  • 2022: Kanye West antisemitic start

    • Higher peak than oct 7

• 

Google trends in antisemitism in Netherlands 

• Dutch peaks

  • Amsterdam riots after football game in 2024

• 

Stereotypes and conspiracy theories

1. visual and verbal tropes

2. Jews and money

3. Jews as bogeymen

4. Sexual danger

5. Well-poisoning

6. Christ killer

7. Blood libel

8. teenage mutant ninja Jews 

9. Eugenics 

10. Jude’s-Bolshevism 

Stereotypes and CT: visual and verbal tropes

• Tired caricatures and stereotypes in contemporary humors formats

  • Jews are behind everything that is important

    • News media

      • Movie industry

    • Medical industry

      • Engineered covid

    • Every war

      • Goes back to 19th century

    • Climate change

    • Migration —> plot to convert white race

• Spreadable content: memes

• Happy merchant meme

Stereotypes and CT : Jews and money

• Bankers

• Ex. George Soros (billionaire)

Stereotypes and CT: Jews as bogeymen

Folklore —> taking away children who have been naughty

Stereotypes and CT: sexual danger 

• Propaganda from 30s-40s

Stereotypes and CT: well-poisoning 

• Creating and spreading disease

• Ex. Covid

Stereotypes and CT: blood libel 

• Jews killing Christian children

• Recycled even today: Qanon and Trump saving babies from them

Stereotypes and CT: teenage mutant ninja Jews

• Tunnels under synagogues used during covid

  • Jokes —> Jews are rats

• When these tunnels were discovered, bc it was strange, conspiracy theories began

  • One being that children were being kept captive in these tunnels

• Memes made

  • Might look harmless and humors, they help spread this message

Stereotypes and CT: eugenics

• Measuring skulls

• Categorizing noses

• Protocols of Zion—> 1903 forgery

  • Supposedly meeting minutes between important Rabies speaking about how they were going to take over the world

Stereotypes and CT: Judeo-Bolshevism 

• Jews said to be behind capitalism and communism

• WW2 propaganda saying Jews were behind communism

Wide spread of these stereotypes

Some go back 2000 years, others from Middle Ages, some are relatively modern

Who wants be to an antisemite after Auschwitz’s?

• How do you do it in a way that is not directly connected to Jews?

• Ex. It’s okay to hate fake Jews

  • Khazaria —> originally Jews were from here, converted to Judaism

    • Spreading conspiracy theories about these peoples is not antisemitic bc they are not real Jews —> they are imposters

Antisemitism and current events

• COVID  —> Jews spread diseases

  • ‘We are the new Jews’ —> wore yellow stars saying they would not be part of covid scam

• War in Ukraine

  • Zelensky is Jewish

Superconspiracies

NWO, Qanon, Illuminati, Great Reset

• A lot can be derived from antisemitic rhetorics

“New antisemitism?”

• Population shifts Europe/US to Israel/US

• 1920: 80% of Jews lived in Europe (Russia) and North America 

• 2020: most of Jews live in Israel or North America

•  —> shift in population has shifted meaning and use of antisemitism

2 definitions of antisemitism 

1. hostility against Jews as minority, lining in diaspora

2. hostility against Jews and Israel, the Jewish state, in which Jews are the majority*

   • *about 75% of the population is Jewish, but including the occupied territories about half of the population is Jewish

Two frames

• anti Jewish racism

• Age-old hatred

Two frames: anti-Jewish racism

• Time and context depending, that affects the life of diaspora minorities. Grounded in racist repudiation and triggered by world events. Expressions may be found amount Muslims and far left, but the frame focuses on the antisemitism of the far right

  • Right wing focus

Two frames: age-old hate 

• A unique and age-old type of hatred, irrational and ineradicable

  • It’s newest expression is hatred of Israel. Views antisemitism as part of Muslim/Arab culture. Focuses of leftist, Arab and Muslim verbal, political and physical attacks on Israel 

    • Left wing focus

Israel and Palestine conflict

• Debate very heated the last couple of years

• Peak in hate speech agaisnt Jews and Muslims increased within 48 hours of oct. 7

• Anti-Zionism

  • Is this antisemitism or is it not?

    • Main question of current debate

Rival definitions

IHRA

Jerusalem Declaration

IHRA working definition 2016

• a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institions and religious facilities

  • Ex. Dehumanizing, demonizing, etc.

  • Issue with definition —> Regarding Israel:

    • Makes it harder to distinguish what is and isn’t antisemitic

Jerusalem Declaration 2021

• is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)

Measuring the problem

• Hard to measure

  • Platforms do not share data

  • Private messaging channels

  • Coded phrases or pictures

  • Research focuses on hate speech broadly

Ice Cube example 

Is this antisemitic or not?

• It could be argued that Ice Cube was focusing on the colored/race aspect and did not even think of how the white men are being portrayed as stereotypical Jews 

Numbers?

• Non-academic studies: No sense of proportions

• Academic: oversampling

  • Eg. By sampling social media accounts of far-right groups

• Discrepancy between actual numbers of antisemitic posts and concerns of Jewish communities in Europe

• Explanations

  • Jews are minority, in society and on social media; small number of targeted messages may affect the group as a whole

  • Third person effect

  • Undersampling of digital messages in non-public spaces

• Counter narratives are under studies but provide hopeful stats

How much is too much?

• Bossetta: 2016, 382k antisemitic posts made up 0.00015% of global traffic on twitter, Facebook and instagram

• But.. Affordances

Affordances: platform design shapes communication

• Does the platform allow for antisemitism?

• Key design features:

  • Supported media: video, text, images

  • Sharing features: amplification of content from another account in public spaces

  • User communication: kinds of relationships promoted; anonymity

  • Moderation policies: stricter or relaxed, enforced or not

  • Who owns the platform?