By: V4 Agency
Hashtags like #heilhitler and “#BurnTheJews” are just some of the key words used in posts and shared with apparent impunity by many on Twitter, because the social media platform, at least until now, has failed to remove their profiles. Twitter is also known to have previously enabled ads targeting neo-Nazi and Islamophobic users.
Although major tech companies, including Twitter, have banned the US President from their platform, anti-Jewish and Nazi content can remain.
Twitter has been criticised by many for hosting white supremacy accounts on its platform, of which more than 50 were suspended last summer.
In some cases, Twitter gave the so-called “blue check mark” to neo-Nazi profiles. These blue badge icons usually appear on the profiles of celebrities, stars, athletes and news sites, among others, to indicate that the account of public interest is authentic. Well-known neo-Nazi Jason Kessler was also “ticked“.
However, a good number of Nazi and anti-Jewish content is still present on Twitter.
“Just got herpes from a Jew,” a user writes.
“Who gives a fuck about peace in the Middle East?! I don’t!! It doesn’t affect me,” reads the post of a committed Antifa user.
The following user has wild dreams about sending Trump supporters to concentration camps.
“Not gonna lie but the coronavirus is the best thing to happen to me in a while. The Jews that got left behind are dead,” another user wrote.
“Israeli Jews should make room by getting the fuck out of Israel,” one user tweeted.
“Rebellious Jews in movie theater and one took his yamika off, go back to Israel,” someone elso wrote.
“This world needs another Holocaust,” yet another online user said.
These posts clearly show that the hashtags “#heilhitler”, “#fuckjews”, “#FuckIsreal”, “#BurnTheJews” and “#HitlerWasGreat” are not banned on Twitter. Besides, clicking on them will bring up further similar content.
Occasionally, users also share some anti-Semitic memes.
“Dirty lying fucking Jews didn’t have it as bad as they try and make out,” they wrote.
Last year Twitter was also forced to apologise, as it allowed ads to be “micro-targeting” neo-Nazis, transphobes, and homophobes. BBC has discovered that it was made possible for brands to send ads to users who had searched for terms including “transphobic,” “white supremacists,” and “anti-gay.” A fake created by the BBC also targeted similar groups.
It tuned out that using keywords including “islamophobes,” “islamaphobia”, “islamophobic,” and “#islamophobic” resulted in the ad potentially reaching between 92,900 and 114,000 users. Ads targeting people using the term “neo-Nazi” in the UK would reach an audience of up to 81,000 people.
In a 2019 interview with the Rolling Stone magazine, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey basically disowned responsibility towards users regarding the Nazi ads incident.
“A lot of the ‘remove the Nazis’ calls are also due to the fact that our enforcement operates on reporting. A lot of people don’t report. They see things, but it’s easier to tweet out “get rid of the Nazis” than to report it,” Dorsey said.