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Pandemic gives rise to antisemitic ‘Zoombombing’; Federal hate crime charges filed in Ahmaud Arbery death; NY synagogues vandalized

Article

April 30, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 ADL counted 196 cases of antisemitic “Zoombombing” attacks in the U.S. last year, including 114 against Jewish institutions, according to its annual report released this week. Three Georgia men were indicted on federal hate crime charges in connection with the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was shot to death while jogging through a South Georgia neighborhood last year. Authorities in New York City are looking for the…

April 30, 2021

ADL Applauds Introduction of Social Media Transparency Bill

Press Release

Calif. legislation would require social media companies to publicly disclose corporate policies and key data and metrics on enforcement New York, NY, March 30, 2021...ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) welcomed the introduction of legislation from California State Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel that would require social media platforms to publicly disclose their content moderation policies regarding online hate/racism, disinformation, extremism, harassment and foreign interference, as well as key…

March 30, 2021

Twitter Must De-Platform Iran’s Supreme Leader

Article

March 19, 2021 By David Andrew Weinberg Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the Supreme Leader of Iran and an active presence on various social media platforms in multiple languages. And although he uses these accounts to spread hatred, violence, and dangerous disinformation – let alone his calls to destroy the State of Israel – these platforms allow him to keep doing so in seeming violation of their own policies. This is in purported deference to his status as a political…

March 19, 2021

The Infrastructure of Hate: Epik Hosts Extremist Groups

Article

February 22, 2021 Social media platforms have received the lion’s share of attention for enabling users to spread hate and disinformation and plan and incite violence and terrorist acts. Flying under the radar are infrastructure providers like Epik, a domain registrar and web hosting company that works with nearly 750,000 websites and is ranked among the 50 largest web hosts. A domain is the address of a website you type into the URL bar of an internet browser. Domain registrars are…

February 22, 2021

Dangerous videos pushed on YouTube; Iranian textbooks more antisemitic than ever; Synagogue and Holocaust memorial vandalized

Article

February 12, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Google's YouTube is still recommending extremist and white supremacist videos to viewers already susceptible to racial hatred, a new report from ADL found. Iranian schools are teaching antisemitism, hatred and conspiratorial material in their textbooks, according to a comprehensive analysis by ADL. Police in Spokane, WA are looking for the person who painted swastikas on the Temple Beth Shalom building and a Holocaust memorial. Read on for more…

February 12, 2021

ADL Supports Reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to Hold Tech Companies Accountable, Prioritize Users and Protect Civil Rights

Press Release

New York, NY, February 5, 2021 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) issued the following statement in response to the introduction of the “Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism, and Consumer Harms Act” or the SAFE TECH Act from Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and which proposes reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that would directly address tech platform involvement in discrimination,…

February 05, 2021

Doxing Should Be Illegal. Reporting Extremists Should Not.

Article

January 15, 2021 We live more and more in digital spaces, so we have to work harder to distinguish protected online speech from unprotected online conduct. In the wake of the attack at the U.S. Capitol on January 6—an attack that was planned, mobilized and livestreamed online—this work has gained an even greater sense of urgency, especially when it comes to doxing. Many people define doxing as posting someone’s personal information online. But doxing as a blanket…

January 15, 2021

How Platforms Can Stem Abuses of Livestreaming After the Storming of the Capitol

Article

January 15, 2021 A livestream video shot by a newly-elected West Virginia lawmaker shows a disturbing gap between what a mob of Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol thought about the events of January 6 and what the rest of the world actually saw. Derrick Evans, a freshman member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, viewed fellow rioters swarming around him and forcing entry into the Capitol as a celebration. He was visibly giddy. But for horror-struck viewers, it was a violent…

January 15, 2021

Open Letter to the U.S. Department of Justice: ADL Calls for a Criminal Investigation of Gab

News

January 13, 2021 The January 6 attack at our nation’s Capitol was deliberate and coordinated. Individuals who broke the law must be held accountable, but we cannot ignore that social media platforms, like Gab, may well bear a measure of criminal responsibility for the attack as well. To the extent Gab intentionally served as a forum for people to plan, coordinate, engage in or otherwise facilitate the criminal activity that took place on January 6, a Department of Justice investigation…

January 13, 2021

Anne Frank memorial defaced; Christchurch attach report says New Zealand police failed to enforce firearm license checks; Facebook to start aggressively policing anti-Black hate speech

Article

December 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The only Anne Frank memorial in the United States was vandalized Tuesday, a distressing display of hate that has prompted a police investigation. A report into last year's Christchurch mosque attack found that New Zealand security agencies were "almost exclusively" focused on the threat from Islamist terrorism, and police failed to enforce proper checks on firearm licenses. Facebook is embarking on a major overhaul of its algorithms that detect hate…

December 11, 2020

Extremist Trolls are Targeting Omegle Users with Virulent Racism, Antisemitism

Article

November 24, 2020 UPDATE: In July 2021, during a investigative radio show and podcast, Alex Mann, an Australian journalist for ABC’s Background Briefing, identified CatboyKami (aka Philip Hedley) as Tor Gustafsson Brookes. Extremists are constantly adapting and finding ways to reach new audiences, spread and spew their hate and create online content. Their latest tactic involves the use of Omegle, a free online chat service that randomly pairs anonymous users for…

November 24, 2020

Facebook’s Transparency Reporting Continues to Obscure the Scope and Impact of Hate Speech

Article

November 20, 2020 The latest Facebook Transparency Report, which covers July 2020 to September 2020 (Q3 2020), raises some alarming concerns around the prevalence of hate speech on the platform, leaving ADL with several questions that demand clear answers. ADL published a blog post about the opaque nature of Facebook’s transparency reports in January 2019. Many of the same problems that existed in the 2019 reports continue in Facebook’s most recent transparency efforts. …

November 20, 2020

Extremists Maintain Significant Presence on Facebook

Article

November 17, 2020 Facebook has been vocal about its recent efforts to suspend and ban hateful, conspiratorial and violent content from its platform. And yet a great deal of extremist content remains. As of November 16, 2020, even a cursory search of Facebook brings up white supremacist, racist and antisemitic pages. The following is a sampling of extremist groups and individuals currently active on Facebook. Antisemites and Holocaust Deniers: TruNews is a fundamentalist…

November 17, 2020

1-11

Hate Symbol

1-11 is a numeric symbol used by the Aryan Knights, an Idaho-based prison gang, to identify themselves. Substituting letters for numbers, 1 and 11 mean A and K, i.e., Aryan Knights.

12

Hate Symbol

The number 12 is a numeric symbol for Aryan Brotherhood groups (as are the numbers 1 and 2 separately), especially the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Substituting letters for numbers, 12 equals AB, i.e., Aryan Brotherhood.

13

Hate Symbol

The number 13 is a numeric symbol for the Aryan Circle, the large Texas-based racist prison gang. Substituting letters for numbers, 1 and 3 equals A and C, i.e., AC or Aryan Circle.

1423

Hate Symbol

The number combination 14/23 is a numeric symbol associated with the Southern Brotherhood, the largest white supremacist prison gang in Alabama. The 14 is a reference to the white supremacist "14 Words" slogan ("We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children"), while the 23 refers to the "23 precepts," a list of rules that Southern Brotherhood members must follow, such as "do not make a debt you cannot pay" and "no huffing lacquer." Additional Images:

21-2-12

Hate Symbol

Members of the Unforgiven, a Florida-based racist prison gang, use the numeric symbol 21-2-12 as a sort of slogan. Substituting letters for numbers, 21 stands for U ("Unity"), 2 stands for B ("Brotherhood") and 12 stands for L ("Loyalty"). Additional Images:

211 Crew

Hate Symbol

ALTERNATE NAMES: Aryan Alliance, Brotherhood of Aryan AllianceGroup Status: Active The 211 Crew is a large racist prison gang based in Colorado. Its main tattoo (or "shield" or "patch") is a complex triangular symbol made out of interlocking arms, with hands grasping lightning bolts and the number 211 in the center. According to law enforcement, the name of the gang originated from the California penal code for robbery. However, members claim that 211 is a numeric code for BAA,…

ALTERNATE NAMES: Aryan Alliance, Brotherhood of Aryan Alliance

511

Hate Symbol

The number 511 is a numeric symbol for the Oregon-based racist prison gang European Kindred. Substituting letters for numbers, the 5 and 11 equate to E and K, i.e., European Kindred. Additional Images: