Online hate analysts are calling for greater eSafety powers after study finds rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia
Australian analysts tracking offensive online comments since the current Israel-Gaza conflict have found anti-Semitic and Islamophobic posts have skyrocketed. They say the national eSafety Commissioner needs greater power to rein in online hate and there should be funding to train police to tackle it.
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00:00Hundreds of posts spewing hate and lies.
00:07Tracking antisemitism and Islamophobia means diving into some of the worst parts of the internet.
00:13It's rough. I think all of us who do the social media monitoring work, we all struggle with it from time to time.
00:21There can be a personal risk for people involved, so we're not using this researcher's name.
00:27But she's part of a team going online for an hour at a time to record offensive content.
00:33So having real people look at this means we see things that artificial intelligence won't.
00:40There's a lot of dog whistles that are used, coded language, things like that.
00:45Firstly, thank you for all the work on getting the report where it is.
00:49The online Hate Prevention Institute has documented a significant rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism
00:56following October 7 and the war in Gaza.
00:59Our work looked at ten different social media platforms and the increase is at different levels,
01:06but it's up significantly on every single platform.
01:09It's the mainstream, it's the extremes, it's everything is just up.
01:14Dr Andre Obla recently used the findings to run training for police from across the world, including Australia.
01:21Looking at both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hate, identifying it, what are the common themes and ways it expresses itself,
01:28and looking at what the platforms are doing, where the gaps are, where law enforcement can currently step in,
01:35and where maybe we need to start thinking about new powers that may be needed.
01:40The Institute's report into Islamophobia and racism against Palestinians and Arabs looked at data from October to February.
01:48It found 1,169 offensive items over 160 hours of searching.
01:56Researchers believe it represents an increase of at least 400%.
02:01An earlier report tracked antisemitism in the same way over the same period.
02:07It found 2,898 items, an increase of more than 530%.
02:15A third comparative report will be released in coming months.
02:19What we see is first it starts online, then it moves into the real world.
02:27Heshi Adalist has been voluntarily cleaning off antisemitic graffiti in Melbourne, including this call to kill Jewish people.
02:38And we already have so much hate in this world already.
02:41If I would have said kill all Muslims or kill all Christians, I would have gone out and cleaned it.
02:45It's more about the hate.
02:47But when it said kill the Jews, since I am Jewish, it was a bit more personal.
02:53He says antisemitism is taking a toll on people.
02:56They're right now getting targeted because they're just Jewish, and that hurts a lot.
03:01People at work, even at their homes, are being targeted online just because they're Jewish.
03:08We also got another case where there was some workplace discrimination.
03:12Elsewhere in the city, Abdu Rafi Suwano has been offering emotional and legal support to victims of Islamophobia.
03:20It's been extremely intense and horrible.
03:23It feels for our entire community that we've been going through a collective and unending trauma.
03:29And while we're crying for our brothers and sisters overseas, we're also seeing the direct impacts on the ground here.
03:35He says it's important to be able to help.
03:38I wouldn't say it feels good. I would say it feels necessary.
03:41One recommendation is to increase the powers of Australia's e-safety commissioner.
03:46The online regulator can only address attacks on individuals, not groups of people.
03:52But we need e-safety to be able to take down such content as well, so they need to be able to issue a notice.
03:58And they can't do that unless the government updates the legislation and actually gives them that power.
04:03These are important fundamental questions around lawmaking.
04:06My understanding is the government, that's the very reason the government is conducting the online safety review.
04:11Peter Carlyle has just been appointed the government's special envoy for social cohesion.
04:16People should be able to disagree peacefully on issues without resorting to the personal attack on someone based on their identity.
04:24The online hate prevention institute is hoping to get funding to run its social media study again one year on, to see if levels have fallen.
04:34In the interim, they're asking people to help fight back by reporting offensive posts to platforms when they see them.