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July 26, 2021 3:33 pm
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UK Antisemitism Monitor Alleges Twitter ‘Cut Off Contact’ After Reporting on Online Hate

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avatar by Algemeiner Staff

The Twitter App loads on an iPhone in this illustration photograph taken in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 22, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

A top UK group monitoring antisemitism claimed Monday that Twitter has been inconsistent in dealing with antisemitism on its platform, and has ended a partnership with the group over the issue.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism protested last summer over a British rapper’s antisemitic rant, which was posted on the social media giant’s platform. Twitter then invited the CAA to report such material directly to Twitter personnel and meet monthly with company representatives.

Tweets were reported in both individual cases and in monthly reports from CAA, the group said.

It reported 1,000 antisemitic tweets, including posts such as “Hitler was right” and “All vaccines were created by Jews to control the population of the goyim.”

However, CAA found that the Twitter representatives ruled that 60 percent of the offending tweets did not violate the company’s guidelines against hate speech. In some cases, it said, one tweet would be considered a violation while another with the same material would not.

The group also said that Twitter never explained its method of evaluating the tweets and who was making decisions on what was permissible. After one face-to-face meeting was held with CAA representatives, further meetings were canceled, and later reports to Twitter received no response.

Twitter did not immediately respond to an Algemeiner request for comment.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at CAA, commented, “We do not have confidence in Twitter’s capacity to address the rampant antisemitism on its platform.”

“As Twitter’s partner in trying to combat anti-Jewish hate, we have not come to this conclusion lightly. But the opacity of Twitter’s parameters, its inconsistent implementation of its own policies, its lack of interest in our offers of training for its personnel, and its decision ultimately to stop engaging with us at all, are not the actions of a company that takes antisemitism seriously,” he said.

“If Twitter brought us on as a partner as some sort of fig leaf for its inaction, we are now laying bare the true picture of the company,” he added. “Having cut off contact with us after we provided clear evidence that Twitter’s policies on hateful material are failing, it is clear that the company is neither capable nor interested in tackling antisemitism, and it must now fall to an independent regulator to assume that role instead.”

“We continue to urge the government to take action now to stem the tide of antisemitic hate online,” Silverman concluded.

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