“Antisemitism 2.0”—The Spreading of Jew-hatred on the World Wide Web

Abstract

This article focuses on the rising problem of internet antisemitism and online hatred against Israel. Antisemitism 2.0 is found on all web platforms, not just in right-wing social media but also on the online commentary sections of quality media and on everyday web pages. The internet shows Jew ‐ hatred in all its various contemporary forms, from overt death threats to more subtle manifestations articulated as indirect speech acts. The spreading of antisemitic texts and pictures on all accessible as well as seemingly non-radical platforms, their rapid and multiple distribution on the World Wide Web, a discourse domain less controlled than other media, is by now a common phenomenon within the space of public online communication. As a result, the increasing importance of Web 2.0 communication makes antisemitism generally more acceptable in mainstream discourse and leads to a normalization of anti-Jewish utterances. Empirical results from a longitudinal corpus study are presented and dis-cussed in this article. They show how centuries old anti-Jewish stereotypes are persistently reproduced across different social strata. The data confirm that hate speech against Jews on online platforms follows the pattern of classical antisemitism. Although many of them are camouflaged as “ criticism of Israel, ” they are rooted in the ancient and medieval stereotypes and mental models of Jew hostility. Thus, the “ Israelization of antisemitism, ” ¹ the most dominant manifestation of Judeophobia today, proves to be merely a new garb for the age-old Jew hatred. However, the easy accessibility and the omnipresence of antisemitism on the web 2.0 enhances and intensifies the spreading of Jew-hatred, and its prop-agation on social media leads to a normalization of antisemitic communication, thinking, and feeling.