The US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

A new survey released on Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that incumbent Jewish members of the US Congress who are running for re-election had been inundated with antisemitic messages on Twitter questioning their loyalties and accusing them of being agents of bigger conspiracies.

The ADL’s Center for Technology and Society collected and analyzed all tweets from July 23-Aug 23 that were directed at the 30 incumbent Jewish members of the House and Senate. A total of 5,954 tweets were identified as “potentially antisemitic.”

According to the ADL report, 10 percent of these tweets were labeled as “Problematic” for containing antisemitic content.

“Within this, there were distinct categories of antisemitic content, including: 1) George Soros-related conspiracy theories; 2) explicit antisemitic language; 3) tropes related to Jewish power and control and 4) tweets questioning the loyalty and faith of Jewish incumbents,” the ADL explained.

Nearly half of all tweets labeled as “problematic” questioned the loyalty, honesty, ideology and faith of Jewish incumbents, while 39 percent pushed misinformation about George Soros, the Hungarian-Jewish financier who has become a hate figure for the global far right.

The report observed that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) were disproportionately targeted with the highest number of problematic tweets. Other lawmakers who were disproportionately targeted in the ADL sample include Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI).

While most of the postings avoided the use of explicit antisemitic language, the ADL noted that some had “included slurs, the use of the echo ((( ))) symbol, and one instance of Holocaust denial.”

“The majority of tweets in this category make blanket statements about Jews, comment on physical traits, and combine dehumanizing and insulting language next to the word ‘Jew,'” the ADL report stated. “The tweets in this set referenced the Torah, made offensive comments about the Jewish identity of the incumbent, espoused the belief that Jews are trying to dismantle America, and repeated conspiracy theories about how Jews are controlling the newsfeed algorithms of social media platforms.”

The ADL called on social media platforms to “develop stronger community guidelines or standards that address hateful content that target marginalized and minority groups.”

“Platforms should work regularly with civil rights organizations and civil society to map out the hate ecosystem for all identity groups and create rules and guidelines tailored to those forms of hate,” the report urged.

“Social media platforms are breeding grounds for hate and antisemitism at a frightening scale, and as very public and sometimes polarizing figures, Jewish members of Congress often experience the worst of this on Twitter,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement accompanying the report.

Greenblatt noted that the ADL had “found a growing use of QAnon conspiracy theories” — which claim that US President Donald Trump is being undermined by a globalist cabal of pedophiles —  along with “other hateful tropes against Jewish members during this important election year.”