nation
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt speaks at the group’s 2018 National Leadership
Summit in Washington, D.C.

Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
ADL Develops Algorithm to Track
Antisemitism on Social Media
BY ASAF SHALEV | JTA.ORG
W hen it comes to antisemi-
tism on social media, the
algorithms governing the
major platforms shoulder some of the
blame for their reach. But the Anti-
Defamation League hopes to fi ght the
spread — by creating an algorithm of
its own.

The Jewish civil rights group
announced on March 8 that it has built
a system called the Online Hate Index,
describing it as the fi rst tool ever devel-
oped to measure antisemitism on social
media platforms. Th e program can sift
through millions of posts quickly to
detect antisemitic comments and aid in
10 their removal.

Th is system uses an algorithm
informed by artifi cial intelligence
to fi nd and classify posts as possi-
bly antisemitic. Th ose posts are then
fed to a team of both volunteers and
experts, who use their judgment to
make the fi nal call. Th e system also
tracks whether the posts are eventually
taken down.

Th e Online Hate Index was needed
because social media companies are
not being transparent enough about
their eff orts to curb the spread of hate
speech on their platforms, according to
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, whose
organization has been pressing the big
tech companies on the issue for years.

“We will use this tool to hold social
MARCH 17, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
media platforms accountable for how
well they proactively take down hate
and how well their content moderators
respond to reports,” Greenblatt said in
a statement.

One of the project’s goals is to
demonstrate that if the ADL has devel-
oped the technology to track antisem-
itism, surely Silicon Valley can do so
as well — and can therefore be doing
more to address the issue.

Social media companies have
attempted to tackle antisemitism in the
past, but their track record is mixed at
best. Facebook (now known as Meta)
has stumbled following its decision to
ban Holocaust denial on its platforms;
engineers developed screens that also
sometimes blocked legitimate educa-
tional posts meant to spread awareness
about the Holocaust.

For its fi rst analysis, the ADL used
its system to scrutinize Reddit and
Twitter, collecting posts from one week
in August of last year. Th e ADL chose
these platforms because they are the
only major ones that provide open
access to their data. Facebook, by con-
trast, does not typically allow outside
groups to tap in for research.

Th e algorithm used by the ADL was
trained to spot instances of possible
antisemitism. In a process known as
machine learning, human beings had
labeled comments as antisemitic and
fed them to the algorithm, which in
turn began recognizing patterns. Th e
more comments the algorithm pro-