Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/22/adl-identifies-4-2-million-ant.html
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I imagine one big challenge of studies like this is that so much anti-Semitism uses coded language that has plausible deniability, like ranting agains “globalists” or “bankers” without mentioning Jews by name.
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Semite
ˈsiːmʌɪt,ˈsɛmʌɪt
noun
plural noun: Semites
a member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs.
Did they include anti-Arab tweets? Because he uses anti-semitism and references to Jews interchangeably.
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So the average anti semite posts 1.43 anti semitic posts a year?
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Shabbat Shalom, Mother&*#%@rs
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Just to be clear, these 4.2 million tweets are “Death to Jews” and the like, right? They’re not tweets like “Maybe Palestinians should have a few human rights?”
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They address that in parts 3 and 7. Basically they only included criticism of Israel if it was tied to some other traditional antisemitic trope.
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The other big one these days with the alt-right is their concern about “alien ideas”, which is their term for “unAmerican Jewish ideas” spread by the likes of Soros that promote feminism, multiculturalism, and all the other plagues on this great God-fearing white nation.
Then there are the triple brackets that adherents of the socialism of fools put around the names of those they know or suspect to be Jewish. I guess that would be easier to grep.
Anyhow, gee, I wonder what happened in the past year or two to encourage such an uptick in open anti-Semitism. Quite a puzzle…
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The study apparently included the triple brackets thing in its search criteria. Not sure how they categorized casual references to Soros or bankers or other coded language.
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And all of those must have made at least one, so even if you have a handful of guy tweeting such stuff in the thousands (which is probably pretty likely), you’ve got a whole lot of folks who are one-offs.
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Yeah, the ratio of anti-semitic tweets to accounts seems really odd to me.
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I think that means the vast majority come from bots using throwaway accounts.
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I’m guessing they’re counting any criticisms of the State of Israel and Zionism in those figures.
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Your guess is wrong according to the study’s methodology:
As noted above, this report distinguishes between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel, its actions and policies. Sharp criticism of Israel, even criticism that pushes the limits of civility, is not necessarily anti-Semitic. However, anti-Semitic tweets will often employ the term “Zionist” as a stand-in for “Jew,” in a context that clearly indicates the tweet was either motivated by anti-Semitism or perpetuated anti-Semitic themes.
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Well, I think the triple brackets thing is a code that is used (and for the most part understood) only in antisemitic circles. I imagine there are other similar code phrases that would clearly indicate intent.
But hey, yo, people in the thread. If you are saying they must have included some borderline or bogus stuff because it is hard for you to believe that there are 3M english-speaking people who would make an antisemitic tweet in a year, then you are trying really hard to argue that it’s unreasonable to believe that half a percent of people are antisemitic. You should ask yourself why you are doing that.
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It may be because criticism of Israeli policies is frequently labelled as anti-Semitic. I have to say unfortunately I have no problem believing there are 3 million English speaking anti-Semitic tweeters.
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I would like to see all their data, not just a few hand picked flagrant examples.
I’m sure there are people who see criticism of Israel’s human rights record as antisemitic, or who cynically call it that in order to deflect that criticism. What concerned me is that somehow people have exaggerated that idea to the point that they just assume that a study like this is suspect. If people fighting antisemitism are reflexively seen as untruthful then that actually does seem a little bit like antisemitism.
“Their data” is all tweets in English for a year.
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Did they include anti-Arab tweets? Because he uses anti-semitism and references to Jews interchangeably.
This inclusion is unlikely. What is more likely is that suggesting that Jews have anything in common with Arabs is considered as antisemitism by the former especially the self-righteous people of the ADL.
Oops, I just added to their count didn’t I?
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This is utterly disingenuous. Like none of us has ever encountered a word in the English language which had a meaning that couldn’t be directly derived from it’s etymology.
If you are going to quote the dictionary, why not just look up the meaning of the word under discussion?
an·ti-Sem·i·tism
ˌan(t)ēˈseməˌtizəm,ˌanˌtīˈseməˌtizəm/
noun
noun: antisemitism
hostility to or prejudice against Jews.
[emphasis added, lest I be accused of deceit]
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