From the Liveblog of
Monday, January 8, 2024
US envoy: China allowing antisemitic content to skyrocket on its tightly-controlled internet since Oct. 7
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
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.
The Times of Israel Community.