A delegation of European political leaders from five countries recently visited CyberWell to learn more about the organization’s efforts to combat antisemitism online. In particular, the innovative tech-rooted nonprofit has played a major role in monitoring and combatting antisemitism and the denial of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities on social media platforms.
The delegation, organized by the European Leadership Network included Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Culture Vygintas Gasparavičius, Danish MP Mikkel Bjørn Sørensen (Danish People’s Party), Finnish MP Janni Kokko (Social Democratic Party), Latvian MP Edmunds Jurevics (Chairman, The New Unity party), Latvian MP Dāvis Mārtiņš Daugavietis (The New Unity party), and Latvian MP Agnese Krasta (The New Unity party). It also included Norwegian youth leaders including Christian Democratic Youth Deputy Chairman Erik Rønhovde and Progress Party Youth Member Vivian Jakobsen.
While at CyberWell, the group learned about the nonprofit’s use of AI-rooted technology to monitor for social media posts that meet the criteria for antisemitism based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition. CyberWell’s team then analyzes the post based on the community standards, and trust and safety guidelines of the platform before reporting it to moderators and adding it to the group’s first-ever open database of antisemitic social media posts.
The group was also briefed about how Hamas was able to use social media on Oct. 7 to inflict mass psychological terror, and how Hamas supporters worldwide have initiated and, in many cases, successfully used social media platforms to deny Hamas’s atrocities including its use of sexual violence against its victims. Since Oct. 7, CyberWell has been leveraging its research and relationships in the fight to combat Oct. 7 denial online.
Of note, each of the delegation’s participants hail from countries that subscribe to the IHRA guidelines.
“Social media promulgating hate, in general but also specifically surrounding antisemitism is rapidly becoming a national security crisis in countries across the globe,” said CyberWell Founder and Executive Director Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor. “Not unlike social media platforms themselves, many countries have been surprised by terror organizations and their allies harnessing social media to spread hate and destabilize their nations, and our hope is that visits like this one organized by the European Leadership Network will help educate and inform these leaders and ultimately arm their governments for the fight against terror and hate online.”
CyberWell is an international technology non-profit combatting online antisemitism by monitoring, reporting, and holding social media platforms accountable for hate speech promulgated through their websites and apps. CyberWell’s AI technology monitors for posts, currently in English and Arabic, that are consistent with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which the organization then reports to moderators alongside the platform-prescribed policies it violates. By understanding and leveraging how social media companies operate, CyberWell has achieved incredible success rates in removing Jew hatred at scale, sparking policy guidance for content moderators, and updating social media policy to account for all forms of antisemitism.
Through partnerships, education, and real-time alerts, CyberWell is influencing social media platforms to take proactive steps against online Jew-hate. For more information, visit: https://cyberwell.org/.
