Jewish Groups applaud YouTube ban on anti-Semitic Nation of Islam channel

The American Jewish Committee said on Twitter that Farrakhan had “for far too long used the platform as a megaphone for his anti-Semitic” outbursts.

By Algemeiner Staff

Jewish organizations reacted positively to the news this week that social media giant YouTube had banned from its platform the stridently antisemitic Nation of Islam (NoI) organization, led by Louis Farrakhan.

The removal of the NoI’s channel was part of a broader move on YouTube’s part to clamp down on hate speech, with 25,000 channels deleted under the company’s guidelines.

“We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies,” the company said in a statement on Oct. 2.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) said on Twitter that it applauded the decision, stating that Farrakhan had “for far too long has used the platform as a megaphone for his antisemitic and homophobic outbursts.”

The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) said that it had been pushing for a ban on the NoI for several years and YouTube’s move was therefore an important one.

Over the summer, several YouTube users waged a campaign to remove from the platform Farrakhan’s three-hour July 4 address — in which he referred to Jews as “Satan” who should have their brains knocked out by the “stone of truth.”

Farrakhan has long pushed the idea that American Jews constitute a “Synagogue of Satan” who exercise unaccountable power across the government, media and education for decades.

“International bankers financed Hitler and poor Jews died while big Jews were at the root of what you call the Holocaust,” Farrakhan infamously declared in 1995. “Little Jews died while big Jews made money. Little Jews were turned into soap while big Jews washed themselves with it.”