Social media regulation is a necessary brake on harmful speech

At the American Jewish Committee Global Forum this year, I found myself at a small roundtable face-to-face with social media executives. Select representatives from Diaspora Jewish communities were invited to share the impacts of online antisemitism with these tech giants, and to grill them on what their platforms were doing to curb it.

The conversation was off the record, so I will not divulge what was said, other than to say that it gave me no comfort or assurance about the trajectory of antisemitism on social media.

What was obvious to me was that the anger in the room was palpable, as we reflected on the damage social media was inflicting on our communities. Extremist and antisemitic content was spreading like wildfire across their algorithms with no meaningful guardrails or action to stop it.

The influence of alternative media channels, from content creators to podcast hosts, at the expense of traditional media, has accelerated the rise of populism and extremism globally, and the anti-establishment streak rising on the populist right and left serves as a critical driver for rising antisemitism.

For those using their voices to spread hate, the medium through which they spread their message – social media – has globalised this very extremism. Antisemitism is no longer taboo or hidden in the shadows – it’s increasingly finding a popular audience online, pushed through advanced algorithms across the world with minimal effort.

The UK’s recent flood of antisemitic incidents, including stabbing and arson attacks in the heart of its Jewish community – many tied to Iran – has been reminiscent of what we saw in Melbourne and Sydney before Bondi.

So too was the explosion of misinformation, conspiracy theories, denials and “false flag” accusations that flooded the internet within minutes of the attacks, and the complete lack of adequate action from these platforms to remove them.