As part of its Antisemitism Awareness Agenda 2020, ICAN has launched a series of workshops focused on combating antisemitism online. Recently, there has been a surge of new activity online targeting Israeli and Jewish Americans, here are just a couple examples:
- Young students from Tzofim Israeli Scouts were targeted on Instagram with Nazi propaganda and death threats.
- Jewish schools, synagogues, and other institutions were targeted and harassed by a YouTube creator.
These two incidents are not just examples of cyberbullying relegated to social media, they were real-world threats targeting the lives, health, and safety of real people.
In response, ICAN has helped the victims communicate with law enforcement, report content to the social media platforms, and encourage the development of personal and institutional security plans.
At ICAN’s inaugural event in Los Angeles, we hosted the State Senator Holly Mitchell, LAPD Chief of Counter-Terrorism, LA County Sheriff’s Deputies, City Attorney Mike Feuer, City Councilmembers David Ryu, and Paul Koretz.
The key lessons attendees learned: 1. If you feel threatened, call law enforcement, call 911 or keep your local police department phone numbers saved for easy access, 2. while some hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, social media platforms aren’t obligated to host that content, learn how to report hate content on your favorite social media platforms, and 3. have a personal, household, community, and institutional security plan in place.
