Latest Cyberwell Research Highlights Surge In Online Antisemitism

Examining election-related content between 2023 and 2025, the report found that antisemitic narratives accusing Jewish communities of political manipulation or control repeatedly surfaced and were amplified online. These narratives, which align with the second example in the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, were often tied to conspiracies alleging Jews exert disproportionate, secretive influence over electoral processes and governance. Such rhetoric has, throughout history and arguably today, incited violence against the Jewish community while undermining public trust in democratic institutions and governments.

Despite clear prohibitions against hate speech by most major platforms, CyberWell’s research found a notable decline in enforcement during election periods. X (formerly Twitter) hosted the highest volume of election-related antisemitic content while removing the least amount of content, despite regular reporting by CyberWell. This reflects its broadly permissive stance toward extreme election-related material, including misinformation, hyper-partisan narratives, and hate speech.

Conversely, YouTube recorded the lowest incidence of antisemitic election content, likely due to its explicit policy prohibiting election-related hate speech against protected groups.

Meta and TikTok showed enforcement rates consistent with average removal rates against antisemitic content at 40%, after violations were flagged through trusted reporting channels by CyberWell. TikTok, like YouTube, had a significantly smaller sample size, suggesting either lower prevalence of antisemitic election-related content or more effective proactive moderation.

Across all platforms, the predominant form of antisemitism linked to elections centered on long-standing conspiracies about undue Jewish influence in government. Posts falsely accusing Jews or "Zionists" of covertly controlling governments, financing candidates, or rigging elections appeared consistently in every country surveyed. “While social media companies are dedicating sporadic and reactive resources to detect election misinformation, they continue to underestimate the extent to which hate speech, especially classical antisemitism, is gaining traction during politically sensitive times,” said CyberWell Founder and CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor. “Our report illustrates that narratives blaming Jews for societal and political failures often surge during elections, yet enforcement remains below average.”

“We continue to provide data and enforcement-based insights to develop the tools to effectively identify and address anti-Jewish posts at scale and effectively,” added Cohen Montemayor. “Stereotypical and conspiratorial claims about Jewish control over politics have fueled violence and mass scapegoating against Jewish communities in free countries in the past, before they turned fascist. Today, the same narrative is gaining increasing traction in the online universe, primarily on social media. Taking care to enforce digital policies against hate speech at scale during election time is a crucial part of ensuring safe elections and preventing additional erosion of trust in our democratic institutions.”

CyberWell’s report also offered clear recommendations to social media platforms on more effective enforcement of their own policies. It urged them to refine their election-related hate speech enforcement policies—not just focus on election-related misinformation. The report also called for improved moderator training to better distinguish between legitimate political discourse and targeted attacks on protected groups. CyberWell also called for improved detection technologies capable of identifying visual cues, coded language and emojis which typically accompany antisemitic content.

CyberWell’s World Democracy Day Elections Report is available here: https://cyberwell.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Antisemitism-Online-Amid-National-Elections-Report.pdf

About Cyberwell

CyberWell is an independent, internationally focused, tech-rooted nonprofit combating the spread of antisemitism online. Its AI-technologies monitor social media in English and Arabic for posts that promulgate antisemitism, Holocaust denial and promote violence against Jews based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Its analysts review and report this content to platform moderators while indexing all verified posts in the first-ever open database of antisemitic social media posts – democratically cataloging it for transparency at app.cyberwell.org. Through partnerships, education and real-time alerts, CyberWell is holding social media platforms and their moderators accountable, promoting proactive steps against online Jew-hate. For more information, visit: https://cyberwell.org/