Report: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok failed to act on 84% of posts spreading anti-Semitism reported via their own complaint systems
Social media companies are failing to act on antisemitism. — Jerusalem Post : Social media platforms fail to address antisemitism - ADL report Donald H. Harrison / San Diego Jewish World : ADL Grades Social Media Platforms on Anti-Hate Responsiveness Sandy Rashty / The Times of Israel : Social media giants ignore reported antisemitism, digital watchdog warns Anti-Defamation League : 2021 Antisemitism Report Card gives Facebook and Instagram a C-, cites slow response time, no effective product-level efforts, no trusted flagger program, more Rhiannon Williams / inews.co.uk : Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok ‘failing to tackle antisemitic content’ Tweets: John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton : Outrageous post by Oklahoma Republican Party @officialOKGOP yesterday. They've left it online, despite widespread criticism. Now, they're fundraising with it. Anti-vaccine groups continue to appropriate & trivialize the holocaust. Esp. troubling when political parties join in. https://twitter.com/... @ccdhate : 📢84% of antisemitic posts are not acted on by social media companies. New report from @CCDHate shows how social media companies are contributing to the proliferation of anti-Jewish hatred online by failing to act. Read now: https://www.counterhate.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Jonathan Greenblatt / @jgreenblattadl : Despite claims to be improving their policies. #antisemitic content remains easily found and distributed across major tech platforms. @ADL's latest report hands out grades to social platforms on how effective they have been in fighting this hate.👇 https://www.adl.org/... @ccdhate : “This is why social media is increasingly unsafe for Jewish people, just as it is becoming for women, Black people, Muslims, LGBT people and many other groups” @Imi_Ahmed comments on the findings of our latest report. https://www.theguardian.com/ ... Simon Clark / @simonclark1965 : good reporting by @guardian on @CCDHate #antisemitism research. Once again, no serious response by @Facebook et al. (And none at all from @instagram ) https://www.theguardian.com/ ... @adl : In our latest report, we analyzed how well nine social media platforms addressed submitted reports of antisemitic content. Check out the report card and see how the platforms have been rated. https://www.adl.org/... @blackamazon : LOL “We're listening” “We're trying ” https://twitter.com/... Daniel Kelley / @danieljkelley : We also created a separate rubric for data accessibility as making data available to researchers is the only meaningful way independent third party audits of how platforms deal with antisemitism and other forms of hate can be undertaken. https://twitter.com/... @carlydmayer : The Oklahoma GOP posted this meme on their Facebook page comparing being unvaccinated to Jews in Germany. I'm tired of the anti-semitism in the “grand old party”. https://twitter.com/... B.L. Ochman / @whatsnext : Every social platform has the ability to remove hate content. But keeping hate speech online is good for their bottom lines and so they don't remove it. https://twitter.com/... Kolleen / @littlewhitty : The Oklahoma Republican Party posted this on their Facebook page yesterday. This is disgusting. https://twitter.com/... Mike Katz / @mikekatz : 84% of posts containing anti-Jewish hatred were not acted upon by social media companies. New research from @CCDHate underlines how poor social media is at protecting users from hate. We need fines to ensure these platforms police & moderate properly. https://www.counterhate.com/ ... JoannaDeGuia / @victoriaparkbks : Not good enough @Twitter @Facebook @instagram @tiktok_uk By doing nothing you are culpable. By doing nothing you are facilitating. By doing nothing you are making social media a “no go” space for Jews. Shame on you. https://twitter.com/... @ccdhate : On Facebook just 11% of reported antisemitic posts were removed. By failing to act, Facebook are providing safe spaces for anti-Jewish racists to spread racism and sophisticated propaganda against Jews. They must do better 👇 https://www.counterhate.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The report extends a long-running enforcement gap: German officials had already pressed Facebook for faster hate-speech removals, while white-nationalist outlets remained on Facebook despite its stated ban in 2019. It shifts the focus from published rules to whether the platforms' own reporting channels produce action.
The ADL's finding spans Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, making responsiveness to user complaints—not merely the existence of anti-hate policies—the immediate measure under scrutiny.
First-order effects
- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok face evidence that their complaint systems left most reported antisemitic posts online, exposing a gap between user reporting and enforcement.
- The ADL gains a concrete basis to challenge the platforms' anti-hate responsiveness, rather than assessing policy language alone.
Second-order effects
- Facebook's prior difficulty removing hate speech after official pressure and its continued hosting of banned white-nationalist outlets make moderation operations, review speed, and escalation pathways the practical points of comparison among the platforms.
- Users reporting antisemitism receive weaker assurance that platform complaint tools will lead to removals, increasing pressure for transparent handling of reports rather than aggregate takedown claims.
Third-order effects
- If complaint-resolution rates become a recurring accountability measure, platform safety programs will be judged increasingly on auditable enforcement outcomes rather than rules and transparency reports.
- The pattern points toward a structural divide between platforms' stated hate-content policies and the operational capacity required to enforce them consistently across reported content.
The trend: Content moderation is moving from policy commitments toward scrutiny of whether platforms' reporting systems reliably convert user complaints into enforcement.