A smartphone displays a folder of social media applications, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Snapchat, and YouTube. Photo: Samuel Boivin via Reuters Connect

The algorithms of the Instagram social media platform direct enthusiasts of fitness and wellness content to antisemitic conspiracies, according to a shocking new study published by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).

Titled “Algorithmic Escalation: From Self-Improvement Content to Antisemitism on Instagram,” the study featured two case studies in which the feeds of newly created Instagram accounts quickly flooded with antisemitic content after just several days of browsing reels and posts sharing information about how to improve the body — a popular trend known as “biohacking,” which in recent years has replaced the so-called “body positivity movement.”

The speed of the transition from dumbbells to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is “alarming,” said CAM, whose Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) discovered the problem. In one case, an Instagram account was routed to the underworld of antisemitic social media before having “developed any meaningful interaction history.” The antisemitic content varied in intensity, from “coded” to “explicit” Nazi propaganda and antisemitic statements uttered by historical figures such as Henry Ford.

“You don’t have to search for antisemitic content to find it on Instagram” ARC research associate Oliver Marks said in a press release. “Our findings show that users engaging with normal self-improvement posts are algorithmically guided toward virulent antisemitic narratives and conspiracy theories. When platforms optimize for engagement without sufficient safeguards, they can end up amplifying hate to vast audiences.”

Antisemitism on social media and online forums has already affected the real world, radicalizing lone wolves to commit mass atrocities. In 2018, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh was attacked by a mass shooter whose far-right radicalization took place on platforms such as Gab. The following year, two perpetrators, David Anderson and Francine Graham, attacked the Jersey City Kosher Supermarket after being exposed to “Hebrew Israelite” content.

Since that time, antisemitism has increased as much as 500 percent on social media, peaking in the weeks and months which followed the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In April, the ADL released a new study showing that Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is reducing content moderation across all of its platforms even as “white supremacist networks, designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and vendors selling Nazi merchandise” flock to them to spread extremism and hate.

“Instagram is developing into a hub for hate and antisemitism, and our research demonstrates this clearly,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “Meta’s moderation rollback has created a permissive environment where extremists thrive, bad actors turn Instagram’s own features into amplification tools for hate, and, as a result, vulnerable communities suffer.”

The ADL has also said that media platforms are seeing a proliferation of antisemitic content about Israel created by anti-Zionist groups. They employ a number of methods to further the mission, including “Resistance News Network” (RNN) on Telegram, a “radical, antisemitic, anti-Zionist” channel which “plays a key role in getting translated terrorist content into the hands of American activists, while also creating and packaging its own content and glorifying terror attacks and other violence.”

Instagram is another online service which pro-Hamas activists use effectively as a news wire. It is especially popular with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an organization that has been central to the campus antisemitism crisis that has seen Jewish students harassed, excluded, and assaulted at colleges across the US.

The Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University, Bloomington published a report last year revealing the extent to which SJP and like-minded groups have used social media, especially Instagram, to spread their extremist worldview.

Meta is just one aspect of the radical online content inspiring acts of violence.

In another study, the ADL examined the cases of Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15 — a rare female mass shooter who committed suicide after murdering two people at a Christian private school in Madison, Wisconsin — and Solomon Henderson, 17, who murdered a female classmate at a public high school in Nashville, Tennessee, before fatally shooting himself. Their journeys toward violence began in the dark corners of the internet, when each enrolled to become members of a website titled “WatchPeopleDie” (WPD).

“WatchPeopleDie” is one of hundreds of shock websites which traumatize audiences with images and videos of beheadings, sexual violence, and other appalling acts of antisemitism, sexism, and self-degradation. Such websites can also function as recruiting grounds for white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

“Extremism, hate, and violent gore are just a click away for many children, making it urgent for schools and parents to implement safeguard,” Oren Segal, senior vice president of counter extremism and intelligence at ADL, said in January. “These toxic online spaces can cause devastating harm in our communities and are increasingly becoming central to the broader violent extremist landscape.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.