Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan addressing the organization’s national convention in 2017. Photo: Reuters / Rebecca Cook.

Jewish organizations reacted positively to the news this week that social media giant YouTube had banned the stridently antisemitic Nation of Islam (NoI) organization, led by Louis Farrakhan, from its platform.

The removal of the NoI’s channel was part of a broader move on YouTube’s part to clamp down on hate speech, with 25,000 channels deleted under the company’s guidelines.

“We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies,” the company said in a statement on Oct. 2.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) said on Twitter that it applauded the decision, stating that Farrakhan “for far too long has used the platform as a megaphone for his antisemitic and homophobic outbursts.”

The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) said that it had been pushing for a ban on the NoI for several years and YouTube’s move was therefore an important one.

Over the summer, several YouTube users waged a campaign to remove Farrakhan’s three-hour July 4 address — in which he referred to Jews as “Satan” who should have their brains knocked out by the “stone of truth — from the platform.

Farrakhan has long pushed the idea that US Jews constitute a “Synagogue of Satan” who exercise unaccountable power across the government, media and education for decades.

“International bankers financed Hitler and poor Jews died while big Jews were at the root of what you call the Holocaust,” Farrakhan infamously declared in 1995. “Little Jews died while big Jews made money. Little Jews were turned into soap while big Jews washed themselves with it.”

https://twitter.com/CombatASemitism/status/1313818861356032000

https://twitter.com/simonwiesenthal/status/1313321096351903746

https://twitter.com/AJCGlobal/status/1313837851084230659