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Two separate studies found there has been a marked increase in anti-Semitic posts on Twitter and Instagram ahead of the midterm elections. And researchers say the social networks aren’t doing enough to prevent the hateful content from spreading. The Anti-Defamation League said in a report released Friday that there has been an increase in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish journalists and others, which has been particularly pronounced on Twitter. While bots, or automated accounts, were responsible for some of that anti-Semitism, the vast majority of online attacks came from real accounts.

The ADL report notes that there seems to be a clear connection between the election of Donald Trump and the rise of anti-Semitism online. “Prior to the election of President Donald Trump, anti-Semitic harassment and attacks were rare and unexpected, even for Jewish Americans who were prominently situated in the public eye. Following his election, anti-Semitism has become normalized and harassment is a daily occurrence,” the report says.

Billionaire George Soros was a frequent subject of anti-Semitic tweets, a pattern that is also present on Instagram. Jonathan Albright, a Columbia University researcher, said the sheer amount of material that is tied to Soros and is anti-Semitic amounted to what was possibly the worst hate speech he had seen on Instagram.

“What was shocking to me for this Soros tag were the nature of the images and the prevalence of hate speech in the captions,” Albright said in a text message to NBC News. “Especially this close to the 2018 election, and in spite of what happened last time around.”

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I've gotten several questions from journalists today re: "are platforms doing better combatting propaganda & disinformation?" I said maybe.

Then I pulled another you-know-who mention network (graph) from Instagram.

It's not just bad, it's #offthechain pic.twitter.com/ByMtjtuCC8

— Jonathan AIbright (@d1gi) October 25, 2018

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Albright wrote a series of tweets recommending several steps Instagram could take to combat the anti-Semitic vitriol on the network. Some are quite simple, including deactivating the #soros hashtag.

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My recommendation to @Instagram: shut these hashtags down. Seriously.

— Jonathan AIbright (@d1gi) October 25, 2018

The ADL also said that social networks need to do more to combat anti-Semitic speech on their platforms. “Online hate is not some idle threat that just lives online and can be ignored. Technology companies need to work harder and faster to curb the vicious violence-inducing harassment on their platforms,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “

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