Getty Images | Thomas Trutchell
Days after Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, the social media platform saw a “surge in hateful behavior” and the then-safety chief called for a “short-term, focused trolling campaign.” said to be due. New research suggests that when it comes to anti-Semitism, it’s nothing.
Rather, anti-Semitic tweets more than doubled in the months since Musk took office, according to a study conducted by colleagues at tech firm CASM Technology and the think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogues. That’s it. Between June 2022 and his Oct. 26, the day before Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, an average of 6,204 tweets per week were deemed “plausibly anti-Semitic.” That is, at least one reasonable interpretation of the Tweet falls within the International Holocaust Memorial Alliance definition. Definition of the term as “a particular perception of Jews that may be expressed as hatred of Jews.”
However, the average from October 27th to February 9th, 2023 was 12,762, an increase of 105%. A total of 325,739 tweets from 146,516 accounts were classified as “plausible anti-Semitism” during the study period from June 1, 2022 to February 9, 2023.
Arstecnica
Finding anti-Semitism with AI
To identify plausible anti-Semitic tweets, my co-authors and I combined 22 publicly available hate speech identification algorithms into one mechanism, and used more machine learning to identify which combination of decisions. to make sure it gives the correct result. We then looked at all tweets (over 1 million total) containing any of the 119 words, phrases, slurs, or adjectives related to anti-Semitism.
No such process is perfect. We estimate that our model makes the correct decision about 75% of the time. We also no doubt missed the anti-Semitic tweets that didn’t contain those 119 keywords, and his deleted tweets by early December when we collected the data.
We then used an algorithm to pull out 10 different themes of anti-Semitism found in the tweets. Some centered around the use of certain anti-Semitic derogatory epithets. Others have alluded to conspiracy theories regarding hidden Jewish influence and control.
An anti-Semitic tweet directed at Jewish investor and philanthropist George Soros justified its own category. There were tweets alleging that he was a covert globalist, a Jew, or a member of the “Nazi” world order.
Another theme was a tweet defending former Kanye West rapper Ye, who made many anti-Semitic remarks after his account was temporarily reinstated by Musk.
Our research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that nearly 4,000 anti-Semitic tweets focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These people variously claimed that the conflict was caused by Jews, or that Jews secretly forced the United States to support Ukraine. It also included anti-Semitism.
