A new report by a UK organization tasked with providing safety, security, and advice to the Jewish community has found that anti-Semitic content is flourishing and is easily available on Instagram, especially in the form of hashtags.
The analysis published on Monday by the Community Security Trust (CST) concluded that users are discovering anti-Semitic content even if they are not necessarily searching for it, and in spit of their “intentions and chosen search terms.”
The reported warned that “for anti-Semitic content, this would appear to represent supply rather than demand.”
The report is based on data from last year that was analyzed by researchers at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, UK.
The report noted that numerous hashtags relating to anti-Semitism and links to posts featuring hateful content about Jews were viewed tens of thousands of times during the seven week period that was studied.
They also found that anti-Semitic content was many times found with hashtags that were listed with posts that were on unrelated topics.
Hashtags associated with anti-Semitic themes are also frequently found alongside hashtags relating to other forms of discrimination or conspiratorial topics.
They called those posts a “gateway to further racist content.”
They also found a significant link between ant-Semitism and anti-Israel content on Instagram.
The report called upon Instagram to “identify when anti-Israel or anti-Zionist language is associated with anti-Semitism or used as a way of expressing anti-Semitic sentiment.”
A spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, told the Jewish Chronicle that most of the hashtags mentioned in the report has subsequently been blocked for “breaking our rules.”
When hashtags are blocked on the platform, no search results appear when you search under them.
“We know there”s more work to do and we are committed to continuing to develop new ways to prevent, identify and remove this offensive content quickly,” the spokesperson said.