X, the ADL, and Antisemitism Amplified
Elon Musk tries to hold the ADL responsible for the platform's decline in ad revenue
Elon Musk (via Wikimedia Commons) and Jonathan Greenblatt (by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons)
X (fka Twitter)'s ad revenue has been in decline since Elon Musk assumed ownership. He has recently threatened to file suit against the ADL for its supposed “defamation” of the platform, blaming that for the decline. (He has previously threatened suit against Microsoft for pulling advertising and for using Twitter data to train its AI.)
The ADL comparing the two weeks before Musk took the helm and the two weeks following, observed in November 2022 that there had been a notable increase in antisemitic content. A March 2023 study published in Forbes supported the ADL's observation. Following a tweet by ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt referring to a “productive conversation” with X/Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, a "BanTheADL" hashtag popped up. This hashtag was widely amplified by a variety of accounts belonging to white nationalists and other antisemitiic personalities.
Brandeis Center President Alyza Lewin sat down with JBS's Shahar Azani on Sep 7, 2023 to discuss the issues of X, the ADL, and the magification of antisemitism online.