The 2024 Racism and Incitement Index from 7amleh reveals a sharp rise in online hate speech against Palestinians by Israeli social media users, as online platforms fail to control inciting and violent content.
This statement was originally published on 7amleh.org on 12 March 2025.
7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media has released its annual report, Racism and Incitement Index 2024, revealing an alarming increase in digital hate speech and incitement against Palestinians, particularly on X and Facebook. According to the report’s findings, 12,482,041 inciting and violent posts in Hebrew were documented throughout 2024 – an average of 23.6 posts per minute 0 demonstrating the increasing use of digital spaces as tools for hostility and incitement.
The report highlights a strong correlation between the rise in hate speech and political and military developments, especially during the genocide targeting Palestinian people in Gaza. It shows that political, racial, and religious motives were the main drivers behind this surge, which did not only target Palestinians in general but specifically focused on Palestinian Jerusalemites. A total of 8,484 inciting and violent posts targeting Palestinian Jerusalemites were documented, most of them on X, indicating a dangerous trend of systematic targeting of this group.
Additionally, the report exposes a disturbing phenomenon of celebration and gloating over the killing and injury of Palestinians, with 9,289 posts documenting Israeli social media users expressing joy over the killing of Palestinians due to airstrikes. This trend underscores the growing normalization of digital violence in Israel and the use of digital platforms as a means to reinforce racism and incite violence.
The report further highlights a significant disparity between digital platforms in handling inciting content. 79% of inciting content was documented on X, while 21% was found on Facebook. Despite Facebook having a much larger Israeli user base, X hosts the majority of violent content, reflecting the platform’s failure to enforce any oversight on Hebrew hate speech. Additionally, the report raises concerns over Meta’s recent changes to its content moderation policies, which now restrict enforcement to only “high-risk violent content.” This shift allows hate speech against Palestinians to spread unchecked, contributing to its normalization and entrenchment in digital spaces.
The report calls for urgent measures by social media platforms, the international community, and policymakers to curb the rise of hate speech against Palestinians. It urges platforms to enhance content moderation mechanisms, remove violent and inciting content in Hebrew at the same level enforced for other languages, conduct independent and transparent assessments of social media platforms’ human rights impact, and allocate linguistic and technical resources for Hebrew content monitoring to prevent platforms from being exploited for incitement.
Additionally, the report emphasizes the need for transparency and accountability in addressing digital rights violations and calls for the inclusion of Palestinian civil society in developing content moderation policies. It stresses the prohibition of digital technologies from being used to incite violence or facilitate war crimes.
The Racism and Incitement Index 2024 underscores the urgent need for concrete and immediate actions to curb the escalation of digital hostility against Palestinians, ensuring that digital platforms remain safe spaces for all, rather than breeding grounds for violence and incitement.
To access the full report, please visit the link here.
