France/Antisemitism - A new tool to monitor antisemitism online in France

Developed by the Crif, the Online Antisemitism Observatory initiative found a total of 51,816 antisemitic online content posted in 2019.

Published on February 27, in the Jerusalem Post

Last week, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Francis Kalifat, president the French Jewish representative body Crif, emphasized the importance of online monitoring in the fight against antisemitism.

“In order to have a more complete picture of antisemitism in France, it was necessary to identify, quantify and qualify the hateful content present on the internet,” Francis Kalifat said.

As such, Francis Kalifat announced the launch of the Online Antisemitism Observatory initiative, a new tool that intends to analyze all hateful contents online. The idea, said Francis Kalifat in Le Figaro, is to observe social media in order to "present a fairer picture of what antisemitism is" in France, "which cannot only be measured by the number of complaints filed."

The new project required over 600 hours of work, looking for antisemitic online content from over 600 million sources.

"It's the first time we managed to build a tool that allows to capture everything that circulates on the Internet," said Brice Teinturier, CEO of the research institute IPSOS, Crif's partner for this project.

The Observatory found a total of 51,816 antisemitic online content in 2019, 63% of them on Twitter and 17% on Facebook. The findinds were classified into four categories, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of antisemitism: explicit expressions of anti-Jewish hated (38%), holocaust denial (13%), hatred towards the State of Israel (39%) and stereotypes and conspiracy theories (52%).

While the Observatory is focusing on antisemitism at the moment, the Crif intends to develop the tool to also analyze homophobia, racism, anti-Muslim or anti-Christian contents.

Over the past few years, antisemitism has increased across Europe. On Monday, the European Jewish Association revealed the results of its survey conducted in different European countries. Among the findings, the survey shows that 1 in 5 Europeans think that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own needs,” and that about 25% claim that Israel’s policies make them understand why some people hate Jews.

France is one of the most affected countries in Europe by the rise of antisemitism. In the pat decade, there were several notable attacks in France, including the murder of a teacher and three pupils at the Otzar HaTorah school in Toulouse in 2012, the murder of four in the attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris in 2015, and the murder of Sarah Halimi in 2017. According to Le Figaro, there was a 27% increase in antisemitic incidents between 2018 and 2019, and French records mention that there were 444 antisemitic incidents in 2011-2019.

Source : Jerusalem Post