During the first month of the war (October 7th to November 7th, 2023), FOA monitored and reported a total of 34,182 antisemitic (based on the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism), anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas, violent items, alongside fake news regarding the war. Hateful content was monitored across nine social media platforms: X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, VKontakte, Telegram, Reddit, and LinkedIn.
The majority of the content was published on X (56%, 19,240 items), Facebook (21%, 7,262 items), Instagram (13%, 4,520 items), and TikTok (8%, 2,862). Only 2% of the content (478 videos) was found on YouTube. The content was monitored in 8 different languages, mainly in English (47%), Russian (27%), French (12%), and Arabic (9.5%). 4.5% of said content was in Turkish, Polish, Serbian, and German.
The average removal rate of above-mentioned content monitored and reported by FOA in the relevant timeframe across platforms is 26%, higher than the average removal rate in 2022 (20%). The highest percentage of content was removed by Facebook (35%), followed by X (28%), YouTube (27%), Instagram (27%), and TikTok (24%). Since FOA is recognized as a ‘Trusted Flagger’ by these platforms, FOA contacts them directly and propel them to remove hateful content. This direct involvement of FOA resulted in a higher removal rate of content monitored on the platforms.
A comparison between the volume of content monitored and reported on social media during the relevant time in 2022 and 2023 yields a shocking, yet unsurprising finding three times the antisemitic and anti-Israel content was monitored and reported in 2023.
