Anti-Semitic Fake Twitter Accounts Are Impersonating Jews
Image by Nikki Casey
By Josefin Dolsten August 21, 2019
NEW YORK (JTA) — Fake Twitter accounts impersonating Jews and promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have proliferated following a post on the online messaging forum 4chan.
The author of the post urges readers to “create a massive movement of fake Jewish profiles on Facebook, Twitter etc.” The goal, according to the post, is to avoid censorship by social media companies and spread conspiracy theories about Jewish involvement in the slave trade, the global economy, mass media and the porn industry.
“You will have the benefit of labeling anyone an anti semite who disagrees with you,” the anonymous post suggested on Friday.
Since then, Twitter users who track Jewish content have documented fake accounts created in recent days.
Tablet writer Yair Rosenberg, who reported the 4chan post Monday on Twitter, shared screenshots of accounts impersonating Jews that he said were created after the 4chan post. The accounts use photos of real and purported Jews and stereotypically Jewish names.
“After the call went out on 4chan, a network of new Twitter accounts run by white supremacists pretending to be Jews popped up,” Rosenberg wrote. “Often, they masquerade as Orthodox Jews, Israelis and/or Jewish leftists. They all follow each other and promote anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content.”
2. After the call went out on 4chan, a network of new Twitter accounts run by white supremacists pretending to be Jews popped up. Often, they masquerade as Orthodox Jews, Israelis and/or Jewish leftists. They all follow each other and promote anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content. pic.twitter.com/rA2cFBm8jW
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) August 19, 2019
Some of the accounts claimed to be affiliated with Jewish Voice for Peace, a left-wing organization that supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. Others expressed support for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and Jewish protests against ICE. Many promoted anti-Semitic ideas.
“#JewishRacism is alive, well, and very real. I am Jewish and see this same hatred towards European people from Jews every day,” read a Friday tweet by an account using the name Simon Edelson.
“Some of us Jews have been known to bend the truth at times for our own advantage,” read a tweet by an account called Chaim Adelberg.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
