The British report that anti-Semitism rose by 5 percent last year masks a worrisome new phenomenon of the use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to promote hatred of Jews.
As reported earlier, Britain’s Community Security Trust stated that 5 percent more anti-Semitic incidents were reported in 2012 than in the previous year.
However, social media anti-Semitism soared more than six-fold, with 80 incidents reported in 2012, compared with only 12 in 2011.
“It’s a new area of law enforcement and it’s a hard balance to get right and when it crosses the line,” said Trust spokesman Dave Rich, quoted by International Business Times.
“People who made anti-Semitic comments in the pub, and it would go no further, now post on Twitter,” he added.
One Twitter account named “Jew in an oven”, with an offensive image, attracted more than 1,000 followers.
Another Tweet about Stamford Hill, home to a large orthodox Jewish community, stated that “Stamford Hill has this unbearable stench of jews man p*sses me off almost everytime. Ugly creatures.”
One wireless Internet network was named the ‘”Auschwitz fan club.”