US envoy: China allowing antisemitic content to skyrocket on its tightly-controlled internet since Oct. 7

By Jacob Magid

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8 January 2024, 10:21 pm

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Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Spectators wave Chinese flags as military vehicles carrying DF-41 nuclear ballistic missiles roll during a parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China in Beijing on October 1, 2019. (AP/ Mark Schiefelbein/ File)

Antisemitic content on China’s tightly controlled internet has skyrocketed since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, according to a senior Biden administration official.

“What we saw after October 7 was a drastic change in the social media within China. The antisemitism became more unplugged, more free-flowing,” US deputy antisemitism envoy Aaron Keyak tells The Washington Post.

“Because we know that the Chinese internet is not free, that’s a conscious decision by the Chinese government to allow that kind of rhetoric to be greatly increased,” Keyak says.

“This is not some kind of uptick, this was a tsunami of antisemitic rhetoric that was allowed to spread on China’s social media,” Keyak says. “This sort of drastic increase that has been sustained since October 7 coming out of China does not happen by accident.”

The Chinese government denies that it promotes or allows antisemitism to fester online.