Thousands of obscene anti-Jewish posts shared online, CST report warns

A new report into online extremism has warned that thousands of pieces of violent antisemitic material are being disseminated on social media.

The Community Security Trust (CST) sounded the alarm on reams of “easily accessible, extreme and violent” videos, memes and posts it said were discovered across at least four social media platforms.

The Jewish charity detailed its findings in its latest report entitled Hate Fuel: the hidden online world fuelling far right terror, which it said was shared with police, government and counter-extremism officials.

The document, seen by Jewish News, was not made public due to the extreme nature of the material it contains.

Social media posts found by the Jewish charity included material blaming the Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros and the wider Jewish community for recent anti-racism protests around the world.

The CST said it produced the report amid concerns over the “quantity and spread” of the material, which it warned poses an urgent threat to Jewish communities.

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Speaking to Channel 4 on Thursday, Neil Basu, head of Counter Terrorism Policing, voiced concerns about online radicalisation amid the lockdown.

“My professional instinct is to tell me that throughout all of Covid, one of my biggest fear is people have been locked down looking at nothing but their screens for over three months now, and there has been an increase in propaganda grievance narratives being twisted online to try and radicalise people who are vulnerable and people have never been more vulnerable,” he told the broadcaster.

Meanwhile, the Government’s adviser on extremism announced this week the launch of a legal review to determine whether current legislation adequately deals with hateful extremism. Sir Mark Rowley, the former head of UK counter-terror policing, will put forward proposals later this year.