Study: Instagram pushes ‘mainstream’ wellness users toward antisemitic content

Instagram’s recommendation algorithm can easily direct users from mainstream self-improvement content to virulent antisemitic material and Nazi propaganda, according to a study published yesterday by the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC).

For the project, ARC used two neutral persona accounts following mainstream creators in the field of fitness and wellness, engaging in three daily sessions of 45 minutes online.

Without any active user intent, both accounts were rapidly served content promoting conspiracy theories and explicit hate speech. By the third day, 31% of the wellness account’s content and 18% of the fitness account’s content consisted of explicit antisemitism, ARC says. Over the three days, 32% of wellness videos and 24% of fitness videos contained coded or explicit antisemitism.

The study found certain “narrative bridges,” such as distrust of the food and medical industries, that led content to escalate from mainstream content to anti-establishment framing to conspiratorial content to coded antisemitic narratives and explicit antisemitism, the study found.

“You don’t have to search for antisemitic content to find it on Instagram,” said ARC Research Associate Oliver Marks. “When platforms optimize for engagement without sufficient safeguards, they can end up amplifying hate to vast audiences.”

You don’t have to search for antisemitic content to find it on Instagram.

In a new study, CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center found that Instagram’s algorithm can push ordinary wellness and fitness users from self improvement content to antisemitic conspiracies in just days, with…

— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) June 3, 2026