Anti-Semitic Targeting of Journalists During the 2016 Presidential Ca | Page 9

But while anti-Semitic tweets demonstrably spiked following election-related news events, the language used in antiSemitic tweets was not solely election-related. Many tweets referenced classic anti-Semitic tropes (Jews control the
media, Jews control global finance, Jews perpetrated 9/11, et cetera).
Racial slurs and anti-Israel statements were the top two manifestations of anti-Semitism. This suggests that while the
initial provocation for anti-Semitic tweets may have been related to the election, the Twitter attackers may have used
news events - as well as the public airing of these anti-Semitic tweets - as an excuse to unleash more general antiSemitic memes and attacks. When Jonathan Weisman tweeted about the racist reaction to his comments about Trump,
he was inundated by a wave of anti-Semitic Twitter responses.
In February and March 2016, as the so-called #NeverTrump movement took hold, self-styled Trump supporters from the
alt-right attacked. (Alt-right is short for “alternative right, “ a range of people on the extreme right who reject mainstream
conservatism in favor of forms that embrace implicit or explicit racism or white supremacy). This is when the Twitter
attacks on Ben Shapiro, an originator of the #NeverTrump movement, began in earnest.
“It’s amazing what’s been unleashed,” Shapiro told the ADL. “I honestly didn’t realize they were out there. It’s every day,
every single day.” Despite Shapiro’s efforts to shield his family from the abuse, his wife and baby were targeted as well.
“When my child was born there were lots of anti-Semitic responses talking about cockroaches.”
Bethany Mandel, a freelance reporter who wrote critically about Trump, was also viciously harassed on Twitter. One user
tweeted about her for 19 hours straight, and she received messages containing incendiary language about her family,
and images with her face superimposed on photos of Nazi concentration camps. Mandel, like the other Jewish journalists
interviewed by ADL, has been targeted by anti-Semitic language before, but these attacks stood out, she said, for their
“volume and the imagery. It also seemed coordinated – they would come in waves and 50 percent of the time I couldn’t
identify the source.”
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