- The attack on October 7, 2023, carried out by Hamas terrorists, is the deadliest massacre against Jews since the Holocaust. The attack was antisemitic not only because most of the victims were Jews, but also due to the intent of the attackers – to murder and terrorize Jews. This intent is made clear both by the 1988 Hamas Charter, which calls for a holy war against Jews, and in the stated intentions declared by the perpetrators of the massacre that day.
- In addition to open celebration of these attacks by sympathizers and supporters, in the days following the October 7 massacre, well produced content, misinformation, and disinformation refuting the scope and nature of the Hamas massacre spread on social media platforms.
- CyberWell identified three main sub-narratives perpetuating denial and distortion of the events of October 7: there were no acts of rape; the State of Israel orchestrated the violent events; and Israel and the Jews are profiting from the massacre.
- Similar to Holocaust denial, which is widely recognized as antisemitic and regularly actioned as violating digital policy by most mainstream social media platforms, the denial and distortion of violent atrocities committed against Jewish people, such as the events of October 7, is antisemitic at the core.
- The dataset in this report is based on 313 pieces of content collected from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube, denying and distorting the violent atrocities committed on October 7. This content was studied and verified by CyberWell’s team. Although these posts had a far-reaching impact, collectively garnering over 25 million views, after being reported to the platforms, only 6% of this dataset set was removed. The numbers are even more alarming when examining X alone, which had a removal rate of only 2%. X is the leading platform hosting October 7 denial content in this dataset.
- The low removal rate of content denying October 7 on social media platforms reveals major gaps in either enforcement of platform policies or in failure to include the massacre on October 7 in the “list” of recognized violent events.
- An in-depth examination of online discourse denying the October 7 atrocities indicates that a small number of prominent influencers spread this Jew-hatred as early as the morning of October 8. While journalists and reporters led denial discourse on X, TV stars and celebrities led denial discourse on TikTok and Instagram.
