Rachel Riley, a television presenter and maths expert known for her role on the popular UK game show Countdown, has warned Jewish schoolchildren about rising levels of online antisemitic

abuse. Speaking at a conference organised by StandWithUs, an antisemitism educational charity, Riley claimed that social media companies were using hate to boost profits. She stated that hate keeps people engaged online for longer, and this is what makes these social media companies money.

Riley drew a comparison between the Holocaust and the role of social media companies in the spread of online antisemitism. She stated that the Holocaust would not have happened if there were no train lines to transport Jews to mass extermination camps. Similarly, the internet in itself is not bad, but the spread of hate speech and misinformation by people who work for social media companies is a problem.

The conference aimed to provide students with the ability to tackle misinformation and hatred online. According to statistics provided to Cyberwell, a not-for-profit that collects examples of online antisemitism, less than a quarter of antisemitic posts were removed by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube last year. The peak in online antisemitism was observed after Kanye West made a series of posts attacking Jews in October 2022, with this kind of content increasing by almost 130%.

Riley highlighted that the internet itself is not bad, but it is being used to spread hateful content. Social media companies are actively promoting this content, making money from it, and keeping people engaged online for longer. This is a problem because antisemitism is a disease, a virus that can spread to millions of people with the press of a button. Social media companies push antisemitic conspiracy theories to users who might have searched for unrelated topics, making money from this completely disgusting content. Photo by Mary-Grace Blaha Schexnayder, Wikimedia commons.