![]() ![]() “Because its anti-Semitism is so obvious.” “If you flag it on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, they will remove it quickly,” Hermansson says. On Telegram, he says, it is easy to find copies of overtly anti-Semitic movies or texts, including the fabricated tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” alongside violent imagery calling for the killing of Jewish people, or anti-Jewish memes such as “the Happy Merchant,” a stereotypical rendition of a grinning, hook-nosed Jewish man, which has been banished from most internet platforms. First and foremost, however, he thinks that Telegram is attractive to anti-Semites because of its “general lack of moderation.” It allows for the easy cross-posting of a vast array of media content: videos, pictures, text files, and voice notes are all supported on Telegram, and individual texts can be shared from one chat group to another like social media posts. The fact that online anti-Semitism is resurgent in a post-Covid world flooded with conspiracy theories is, therefore, grimly unsurprising.Īccording to Hermansson, the factors that have made Telegram the ideal platform for anti-Semitism range from the anonymity it grants its users to its structure. But as University of Warwick philosophy professor Quassim Cassam detailed in a recent study, most conspiracy theories eventually drift toward blaming a small group of people for whatever fictitious conspiracy they posit almost invariably, that group is coded as Jewish. Periods of uncertainty and isolation tend to give rise to all sorts of anti-establishment and anti-elite narratives, and the early phases of the pandemic were characterized by conspiracism on issues ranging from 5G to Bill Gates’ supposed role in the pandemic. ![]() Hope Not Hate found that conspiracy theories in general have been burgeoning online since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and its attendant lockdowns and social distancing measures. ![]() Hermansson claims that some of the anti-Semitic content shared on Telegram amounts to terror advocacy and should be cracked down on accordingly. In 2019, the app removed more than 43,000 bots and channels linked to the Islamic State terror group as part of a Europol operation. “If you compare this to how Telegram has dealt with Islamic extremism and terrorism, it is a night-and-day difference,” says Patrik Hermansson, a researcher with Hope Not Hate. Telegram’s press office did not respond to a request for comment. Telegram has taken no action against that content. Hope Not Hate also found that at least 120 Telegram groups and channels have shared the racist, anti-Semitic manifesto penned by the terrorist who attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019, killing 51. One of these, Dismantling the Cabal, which trafficks in the New World Order conspiracy theory that launched in February 2021, has to date gained over 90,000 followers another, run by an anti-semitic QAnon advocate dubbed GhostEzra, has garnered a following of 333,000. The report points out that several channels devoted to anti-Semitic conspiracism, or to straight-up violent anti-Semitic content, have grown dramatically in 2021-quite unimpeded by Telegram’s moderation. This notably includes believers and peddlers of QAnon, the anti-Semitism-suffused conspiracy theory linked to the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol. This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.Ī new report from Hope Not Hate, focused on the spread of anti-Semitism online and due to be published in full today, has found that Telegram is foremost among major internet platforms in providing a “safe haven” for anti-Semites and extremists who have been booted from other social networks. ![]()
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