Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief Dovid Efune appears on i24 News. Photo: Screenshot.

The surge in recent years of hate crimes targeting Jews around the world can be at least partly attributed to the pervasiveness of social media, the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner said during a Wednesday appearance on i24 News.

“One of the things that could really be having an impact here is the rise of social media platforms that create an opportunity for various forms of haters to gather and organize and reinforce each other,” Dovid Efune told “Global Eye” host Benita Levin.

Before their attacks, the perpetrators of the shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, Efune noted, “were talking to a community of haters…one of them was on Gab, the other one was on another platform called 8chan.”

“So if we had to put a finger on it, I think one of the areas of real concern and one of the areas that is sort of leading to this growth is that whereas bigots and haters might have been isolated in the past, hiding and sort of circulating independently, now you have opportunities for them to gather, reinforce each other and to build communities to egg each other on,” he continued.

Watch a segment from Efune’s i24 News appearance below:

Neo-Nazi group 14First was responsible for anti-Semitic leaflets in San Antonio, Texas. @Efune says the rise in hate crimes is directly connected to social media. pic.twitter.com/Afc5mCtFQb

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) November 11, 2020