Social media radicalisation should worry us – because it’s happening to all of us

Last night, I went onto social media and saw that our new Prime Minister had picked Ed Miliband to be his foreign secretary. Given the foreign policy decision Mr Miliband is best known for – opposing military action in Syria in 2013, which can be argued indirectly led to hundreds of thousands of deaths – it should be the most controversial of all Andy Burnham’s cabinet choices.

However, I found myself taking a different angle. I wrote on social media: “At my most cynical, I would say appointing Miliband as Foreign Secretary is a clever way for Burnham to try and defang a lot of criticism of what will inevitably be a much more hostile foreign policy towards Israel. ‘But my Foreign Secretary is Jewish’, could be the go-to response.”

And then I took a step back, and thought about that for a minute. And I realised that, to an outsider, who doesn’t know me, that would sound barking mad – conspiratorial, even. It’s not that the ‘defanging criticism’ scenario won’t ultimately be a side-effect of the decision to appoint Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary – in a similar way, elements of the Left in the UK have found it harder to attack Labour’s more hard-line immigration policy precisely because it is being driven by Shabana Mahmood.

It’s the idea, however fleetingly entertained in the most suspicious corner of my brain, that a cackling Andy Burnham, sitting in the shadowy depths of a flat-roof pub in Makerfield, decided to pick Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary specifically for the purpose of acting as a useful idiot token to provide cover for a hard-line anti-Israel policy. As I wrote immediately in a second social media post after my first, for people in the Jewish community to think as much would be to indulge in main-character syndrome.

Recently, I have been considering the subject of radicalisation, and I suspect most of the people reading this article have as well, even subconsciously. We look at someone who we used to respect, whether a writer, a singer, or a sports personality, and we wonder: what happened to them? Whether it’s an ‘anti-fascist’ musician ranting about the Rothschilds and usury, or a well-loved comedian sharing a constant stream of anti-Muslim hatred on social media, it’s quite clear that they weren’t always like this. What changed, exactly? What switch clicked in their brains to suddenly lead to this sort of behaviour?

The answer, of course, is that examples of overnight transformations are vanishingly rare – suffice it to say that perhaps the best-known example, Paul on the road to Damascus, is one which many Jews view with considerable scepticism. Such changes in outlook tend to happen incrementally. Anyone on social media these days is exposed to a constant stream of articles, images and data – some of which can be false, or at the very least taken wildly out of context. Sometimes we also see a variety of people in our immediate social circles reacting in a certain fashion, and without even realising it, our attitudes can change, ever so slightly, to ensure that we are still accepted within the larger group in which we have found ourselves.

We also see our prioritisations reflected back at us in those who oppose us. For me – a Zionist Jew – Israel’s existence is incredibly important. For an increasingly large number of anti-Zionists – Jewish or not – it feels like Israel ceasing to exist is a key element of their identities. What both groups have in common is a tendency to put Israel at the centre of everything. Today I saw a video where two notorious anti-Zionists described Spain’s victory over Argentina as “almost a proxy for Israel vs Palestine”. Yesterday I saw a Zionist, apparently seriously, advocating that Israel recognise Argentine sovereignty over the Falklands because Argentina under its current President has been more friendly to Israel than Britain has.

For an increasingly large number of anti-Zionists – Jewish or not – it feels like Israel ceasing to exist is a key element of their identities

This is abnormal, and I do think that social media has played a major part of it. The algorithms on various platforms specifically push content at you based on what you have previously expressed interest in, and if you don’t know any better, it can destroy your reason.

Earlier this year I looked into a candidate for political office, who hadn’t mentioned the Israeli Palestinian conflict at all until early 2025. And then suddenly it began appearing on their timeline, with the level of vitriol in the posts ratcheting up all the time until it reached der sturmer levels of antisemitism.

By contrast, a distant cousin by marriage has repeatedly shared the most obvious pro-Israel AI slop imaginable on Facebook, despite people repeatedly telling them that what they are sharing is AI.

So I would respectfully suggest that all regular social media users – whether Twitter or BlueSky, Instagram or TikTok, Facebook or LinkedIn – occasionally take a minute out of their day to consider whether an opinion on a topic they have chosen to focus on reflects reality. If it does not, then perhaps it would be wise to take that into account going forward.

And if you’re reading this and shaking your head scornfully, I would respectfully suggest that you may be one of those who needs it most of all.