Social media spreads anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiment

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok have been inundated with videos, photos and commentary related to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a senior fellow at The Israel Democracy Institute, told FOX Business that while posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok "warn" users to certain forms of extremism, it's encrypted apps such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram, as well as private Facebook groups, where "incitement happens." "One thing that was very disturbing in Israel in the last couple of days was the use of those WhatsApp and closed Facebook groups … to incite violence against journalists and the media outlets themselves," she said. "This is, again, something we've seen in the past but not in such an extreme manner. … It's a bad time for democracy." It wasn't much better on public-facing platforms, where tweets capturing the manifestation of that incitement quickly went viral.