Generative AI: The New Weapon for Fighting Antisemitism Online

The technology was able to find not only blatant instances of antisemitism but could also detect anti-Jewish hate in puns, allusions, coded language, and symbols. 

By Shula Rosen

Although antisemitism is often known as the world’s oldest hatred, in every generation, it takes new forms.

In the wake of October 7th, antisemitic incidents have risen 283%, according to the World Zionist Organization.

Much of this growth in antisemitism can be attributed to online social media platforms, where misinformation and hatred can easily grow and spread.

Shiran Mlamdovsky Somech writes in the Jerusalem Post about how generative AI can be used to “hunt” down antisemitic tropes by scanning platforms and identifying harmful language and patterns.

In addition, the technology can also generate pro-Jewish educational content to raise awareness.

One example of Somech cites is the Decoding Antisemitism initiative, which occurred between 2020 and 2024 and was led by Dr. Matthias Jakob Becker.

Becker trained language models to detect antisemitism online in English, French, and German.

The technology analyzed 130,000 user comments in 160 categories and was able to find not only blatant instances of antisemitism but also detect codes in puns, allusions, coded language, and symbols.

For instance, the technology correctly flagged Israel, spelled with a dollar sign like I$rael, as antisemitic.

In addition, Generative AI can learn from what “works” and goes viral in antisemitic and anti-Israel memes and adopt similar strategies to make a case for Israel.

For instance, the “All Eyes on Rafah” meme was created in Malaysia and has been shared 47 million times.

The meme’s advantage was that its message was simple. It didn’t contain words that platforms could easily flag, yet it could, with visual and verbal simplicity, falsely imply that Israel was doing harm.

To counter the anti-Israel meme, pro-Israel content creators generated something similar with the phrase “Where were your eyes on October 7th?” with the image of a Hamas terrorist standing over a baby.

Another popular pro-Israel meme featured the words “Be their voice” and included AI-generated images of the hostages.