Online antisemitism mars election campaign

An Israeli online monitoring organisation has identified 80 anti-Jewish posts related to Australia's election campaign.

The posts peddled antisemitic stereotypes such as claiming Jews control Australia and exert undue influence on government. Some framed immigration policy as a tool of Jewish control, accusing both major political parties of being complicit in advancing this agenda. Others accused Jews of deliberately staging antisemitic incidents to manipulate public opinion, gain political advantage, or justify restrictive laws around hate speech

X accounted for the majority of posts (71.25%), followed by Facebook (23.75%), and TikTok (3.75%). Only one post was found on YouTube.

X was also the platform least likely to remove antisemitic posts, removing only 5% of the antisemitic posts on its platform. TikTok removed a third of the offensive post while Facebook removed almost 90%.

The research was conducted by Cyberwell independent non-profit, non-governmental organisation which uses an AI-driven monitoring tool to identify potential antisemitic posts, which it then examines manually. Cyberwell uses the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Antisemitic posts were not oriented towards either side of politics. Post attacked both Labor/Anthony Albanese and Liberal/Peter Dutton, often condeming both as tools of Jewish interests.

Posts used both traditional antisemitic tropes of Jewish power and "new antisemitism" motifs which substtitue the word 'Zionist' for 'Jew'.

There were also cases of antisemitic pamphlets and grafitti during the election campaign, as well as significant weaponising of Jewish issues.

The Jewish Community Council of Victoria and Community Security Group have released a report which shows 2024 was the worst year on record for antisemitic incidents, with a total of 552 recorded cases.

This figure represents a 52% increase from the previous record set in 2023 and surpasses the combined total of incidents from the past five years (2018-2022).

Incidents related to Israel-Palestine surged from 8% before October 7 to 59% in 2024 and 53.4% of incidents were linked to the far left. Prior to October 7 only 8% of incidents were connected with the far left.