A cookie emoji refers to the oven, and therefore to the crematorium. A drawing of a shower evokes the gas chambers of the death camps disguised as bathrooms. Two lightning bolts imitate the acronym of the SS, organizers and executors of the Holocaust. A pictogram of a small painter with his brushes, and here is Hitler, a failed artist from Vienna. The initials TJD (Total Jewish Death) in fact wish for a new genocide.
This is the kind of symbolic diversion and coded messages that are now proliferating online to allow anti-Semites to circulate their nauseating messages away from censors. In French, the rhetorical device is called dilogy. In English, we say dog whistlein reference to a whistle audible only to the keen hearing of dogs.
Emojis from the digital breviary of hate were displayed and dissected by academic researcher Katharina Soemer on Thursday morning at the Holocaust Museum in Montreal. Her presentation focused on online anti-Semitism. Mme Soemer directs the Social Media & Hate Lab at the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University.
“Anti-Semitism is constant on social media as it is a constant in society. At the same time, online anti-Semitism is stimulated by events [sociaux politiques]summarized M.me Soemer: Plus, social media changes very quickly, and so do the symbols they use.
The expert’s presentation drew about 80 people, mostly women, some from other provinces. The museum’s three-day seminar ends Friday. It provides tools for teaching about the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism in the real and virtual worlds, where young people are most likely to be found. The conference also featured footage of an influencer doing her makeup online while delivering a tribute to Hamas.
Again and again
The atavistic defect of Western societies for centuries and centuries is now swelling more and more online. The pandemic has recently stimulated the group shooting, with Jews being blamed for creating and spreading the virus in another plot to dominate the world.
The Hamas attack on Israeli citizens on October 7, 2022, had a similar negative effect. The X Network saw an 800% increase in anti-Semitic posts in the following weeks. The Holocaust Museum has also been affected by the tragedy and the ongoing war in Gaza, with its website receiving far more hateful comments than usual.
Mme Soemer and his team use a definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which brings together governments and experts. That characterization says it is “a certain perception of Jews that may manifest itself in hatred toward them” in the form of “rhetorical and physical manifestations targeting individuals, institutions or places of worship.”
According to this definition, on October 30, 2022, out of 450 tweets sorted by academics, 26% were downright anti-Semitic. Some wrote, for example: “5,999,700 to come so we can be in the Holocaust, part two” or: “I’m going to turn on my oven for two minutes in honor of Israel.”
Another typical case presented by the speaker consists of establishing equivalences between what Israel does to the Palestinians and what the Nazis did to the Jews. Other derivatives seem more complex. A message can present Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal. This is debatable, as the last President Bush could deserve the infamous title. On the other hand, describing the Israeli prime minister as “Satanyahu, child killer” recalls the old anti-Semitic cliché of the satanic Jew who devours babies.
Katharina Soemer pointed out that new online communication tools have their inherent flaws. TikTok, popular with young people, seems particularly effective with its algorithms that stimulate radicalization and the spread of hateful ideologies. “TikTok’s recommendations are based on what I’ve already seen,” she said. “When I’ve seen something, I’m very likely to see it again.”
Only, these means of communication are powered by humans, all too human. “It’s not just a platform. It’s not just an algorithm. There are people behind it. Anti-Semitism is spread by anti-Semites,” the researcher sums up.