Social Media posts rip Jews as both instigators and suppressors

Antisemitic posts on X blamed Jews for orchestrating violent protests in France and, at the same time, for suppressing anti-government demonstrations in Albania, according to CyberWell, a nonprofit that tracks antisemitism on social media.

Some of the posts urged attacks on Jewish businesses and called for another Holocaust, the group said.

“Scapegoating narratives are remarkably adaptable, even when that means blaming Jews for opposing roles in either fueling or suppressing civil unrest,” said Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, CyberWell’s founder and CEO. “The details change, but the underlying message remains the same: Jews are to blame.”

In France, protests began with high school student walkouts on Sept. 21 and spread nationwide. CyberWell said posts in English and French accused Jews of orchestrating the unrest. Some used the coded term dragons célestes (celestial dragons), taken from the Japanese manga series “One Piece,” to portray Jews as a powerful, privileged elite. Others claimed Jews were staging incidents to make protesters look antisemitic.

Some posts urged protesters to loot Jewish-owned businesses, claiming Jews were robbing France. Synagogues and Jewish businesses were reportedly attacked and vandalized during the unrest. CyberWell said some posts justified those attacks by blaming Jews for Europe’s immigration crisis, while others denied the attacks happened or claimed they were staged.

In Albania, posts tied to anti-government protests pushed the opposite story. They claimed Jews controlled the government and were responsible for cracking down on demonstrators. According to CyberWell, the content included the antisemitic “Happy Merchant” caricature and calls for another Holocaust, among them a claim that the “problems of 2026 require the solutions of 1939,” a reference to Nazi persecution of Jews.

CyberWell also found antisemitic posts in threads next to advertisements for X Business, which it said raises concerns that the platform may be making money from hateful content.

“The spread and monetization of conflicting anti-Jewish scapegoating conspiracies online from France to Albania highlight the growing severity of antisemitism as a global problem,” Cohen Montemayor said. She blamed “powerful engagement algorithms and the lack of scalable antisemitism compliance mechanisms on social media platforms” for allowing political unrest to be exploited “to normalize hatred toward Jews and, in some cases, incite violence against them.”

She said platforms need to recognize narratives, not just individual words or symbols.

“Effective enforcement requires contextual expertise to identify both explicit calls for violence and coded antisemitic content that can evade automated moderation,” Cohen Montemayor said. “Without that expertise, platforms risk allowing the same dangerous narratives to spread unchecked.”

CyberWell is an independent nonprofit that operates worldwide and partners with Meta, TikTok and YouTube. It uses AI-powered tools to monitor social media in English and Arabic for antisemitism, Holocaust denial and incitement to violence against Jews.

Reported by CyberWell.