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Study finds Israel is the most targeted country on Twitter

Israel was accused of being a “human rights violator” in tweets significantly more often than Iran, China, or North Korea.

By World Israel News Staff

Twitter users disproportionately focus on alleged human rights violations committed by Israel, mentioning the Jewish state a staggering twelve times more than the second most criticized country in tweets centered on the issue, according to a new report.

A large-scale survey breaking down tweets about human rights and which countries were most mentioned in those posts was commissioned by the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).

The researchers presented their findings to the Knesset Caucus for Israel-American Jewry Relations on Wednesday morning, according to a Jerusalem Post report.

The study, which analyzed over 100 million tweets between January 2020 and June 2022, discovered that Israel was unequivocally the country most often mentioned as being a human rights violator by users.

Israel was accused of human rights violations twelve times more often than China, 38 times more than Iran, and 111 times more than North Korea.

The prevalent anti-Zionist sentiment on Twitter can spill over into physical violence against Jews in cities across the world, warned one of the officials responsible for the report.

“We have identified a clear correlation between social media discourse and its influence in the real world,” said Shira Ruderman, Executive Director of the Ruderman Family Foundation, in a media statement.

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“The fact that Israel is measured differently from other countries in the world, using a double standard, is alarming. This issue crosses political lines and worldviews and is an opportunity for elected officials, from all sides of the political spectrum, to denounce this disturbing phenomenon.”

Adam Sohn, CEO of the NCRI research group, said that his study found that users who claimed to be engaging in strictly anti-Zionist discourse almost always posted antisemitic sentiments as well.

“Many people distinguish between the two, but our research suggests the tropes they use are nearly identical,” Sohn said.

“We found this to be true in our current as well as previous analyses, where there was a strong correlation with real-world antisemitic incidents. The tropes of anti-Zionism are used to justify a larger attack against Jews everywhere, and we urge proper measures to be taken against it.”