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The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) has praised Meta’s decision to ban the term “Zionists” as a negative substitute term for Jewish people and Israelis in relation to certain types of hateful attacks.
According to Meta’s Policy Forum update from Tuesday, it will now remove content that targets “Zionists” with dehumanizing comparisons, calls for harm, or denials of existence on the basis that “Zionist” in those instances often appears to be a proxy for Jewish or Israeli people.
CAM has been working on this and similar issues with the Meta Policy Forum.
“We applaud this decision take by Meta’s Policy Forum, and the understanding that appropriating the term ‘Zionists’ to hide blatant Jew hatred has no place on their platforms,” said CAM CEO Sacha Roytman. “This is an important first step toward ending the immunity and impunity for antisemites online.”
“For too long, antisemites have been allowed their incitement and Jew-hatred by merely changing key words like ‘Zionists’ and ‘Zionism,’ which is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people in its indigenous and ancestral homeland,” he added. “The Jewish people’s enemies have not only appropriated Jewish indigenous terminology, but they have also used it as a weapon against us. Meta’s decision is welcome because it recognizes this and draws a heavy red line against it.”
Meta’s Policy Forum’s update states, “Going forward, we will remove content attacking ‘Zionists’ when it is not explicitly about the political movement, but instead uses antisemitic stereotypes, or threatens other types of harm through intimidation, or violence directed against Jews or Israelis under the guise of attacking Zionists, including claims about running the world or controlling the media, dehumanizing comparisons, such as comparisons to pigs, filth, or vermin, calls for physical harm, denials of existence, and mocking for having a disease.”
Roytman concluded, “We hope other social media and online companies will follow Meta’s leadership on this issue. We have seen all too regularly how online incitement and abuse, especially antisemitism, has led to real-life harm to Jews, Jewish communities, and Jewish institutions, and this can only be stopped if those who allow the flow of hate ensure its cessation immediately.”
