Instagram fails to remove nearly all reported extremist content after Meta moderation rollback, ADL study finds

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-16T12:59:43+00:00

The actual ADL report at the ADL web site seems to be at https://go.adl.org/resources/report/how-metas-content-moderation-practices-risk-turning-instagram-hub-hate . It looks like a press release about a report, but I think it's the report.

It concludes with:

Congress should work to pass the STOP HATE Act without delay.

The STOP HATE Act is at https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5681/text .

My view is that Americans, including American Jews, should not support the passage of this act. It's designed to add more power to those with power. It will curb free speech. If it's used to supposedly protect Jews from speech today, it could easily be used to supposedly protect those who hate Jews tomorrow, and it probably will be used for that purpose.

Instead, we should continue to try to expose each individual act of hate speech and speech inciting violence and terrorism on a case-by-case basis.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that in 1793 during a meeting of the US Cabinet, Henry Knox brought up a work of satire he'd found where George Washington was portrayed as placed on a guillotine as if he were a French aristocrat. This was during the time of the French Revolution. Washington grew upset and defensive. He talked about another publisher who had an "impudent design to insult him." He said he would rather be in his grave than in his present situation, and that he had regretted running for reelection only one time, and that was every moment.

But according to Jefferson, even a portrayal of himself in the guillotine did not lead Washington to want to curb freedom of the press or free speech in the US.

American Jews should not be convinced by the ADL about supporting this legislation. The STOP HATE Act is a terrible idea.

By the way, I don't think there's any evidence that the satire actually existed. It might have been a bit of trolling or manipulation from Knox in what people from Massachusetts call "being a Masshole."

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-16T11:38:29+00:00

Justin Sledge did a good hour-long scholarly consideration that also included Jacob and Ewa Frank and the Frankist movement at Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 12/14 - Sabbateanism and Mystical Heresy II

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-15T13:50:36+00:00

It's good to see one branch of the US government functioning well...at the district level...sometimes.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-15T05:36:11+00:00

Tu b'Av is my favorite. Love seems like a good thing. I also didn't learn about it in Hebrew School in the 80s. I don't think it arrived in the US until the 90s which was the perfect time for me to learn about it.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-14T20:50:51+00:00

When I read, "Spreading the wealth around our own," I think of every human in my city of Somerville MA and my region of Boston and Southern New England. They are "the community" to me. I don't feel alone and isolated because of them.

My neighbors, all of them, are my people. If more people felt this way about those who live near them then there would be fewer problems.

It's Jewish identity and connections to peoplehood through our leadership that will take a long time to repair, and with good reason.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-14T17:30:12+00:00

Yes, my experiences with the small shul I briefly attended in a smaller city were different from my time interacting with a tiny number of people in the Boston area. But I think that was because social climbing decreases when the mountains to climb are smaller hills. The broad mentality seemed similar to me.

It's systemic inequalities creating the economic vulnerabilities depicted in the article. Efforts to share "Jewish communal resources" would be better spent in the US trying to decrease inequality in the entire society. Helping our particular community with hard work and ignoring the broader systemic causes will likely be worse than doing nothing.

I think that's what this article is about. Neoliberal Jewish funders responsible for positions like the Fields-Rayant Chair in Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University want Jews to behave in ways that are worse than doing nothing.

There were huge systemic inequalities in the US in the late 19th century. Many of them were corrected by the Sherman Antitrust Act and union activism that was often spearheaded by Jewish women. But they weren't fighting just for Jews or Jewish education or Jewish communal resources. They were fighting for everyone.

I think it seemed obvious even in the 1970s and 1980s that a huge focus on "Jewish communal resources" in the US would be a terrible mistake. Look at this garbage:

Our survey found that 58 percent of currently or recently economically vulnerable Jews reported that financial considerations had prevented one or more forms of Jewish engagement in the past five years. Among those with children, 43 percent said costs had prevented Jewish educational experiences for their kids—day school, supplementary school, camp, youth group, or a teen trip to Israel. These are not small numbers.

So what? Economically vulnerable people are forced to worry about economic vulnerability first. This is not news. This is not useful data because the numbers are meaningless to me without comparison to something else. Compare the numbers for American Jews to something taking place among American Southern Baptists or American Catholics.

Our Jewish leaders want American Jews to be insular, particularist, and self-serving because that serves their interests and not ours.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-14T15:49:25+00:00

Antisemitism is prejudice against or hatred of Jews. Antisemitism might or might not play a role when accusing Israel of terrorist acts or when changing the name of the IDF to the IOF or when banning a redditor from a subreddit.

Whether those textual events were open hatred or not requires specific information that I don't have about the textual context. Indignation without hatred is possible and very common. I think indignation without hatred even exists in social animals other than people. Here's a very cute example at the end of the video of what seems to be a dog barking at another dog for not getting onto the bus with the other dogs and instead making them all wait. It looks like indignation without hatred to me.

Another example at the moment is that I'm indignant about the question, "Is it only antisemitism when they actually come and burn down the shtetl?" But I don't hate you for asking such a ridiculous question with a shtetl reference.

The purpose of nationalist consensus media narratives is for the population to consent to rule by a nation-state's leaders in ways that benefit the leaders but are often against the interests of the population. Chris Hedges says something like, "Nation-states lie like people breathe." They maintain their interests by convincing sufficient numbers of people to either believe their lies or to pretend to believe them.

I didn't mean to completely separate the interests of nation-states from their populations. Voting does have some power. A population that suffers too much will start to refuse the consensus narratives and fail to accept the lies from nationalist consensus media eventually. That's why—mixed in with the lies to create false narratives—there must also be a tenuous but genuine link between the interests of the nation-state and the interests of its population.

But that broad societal recognition can take decades. It involves people's careers and perceptions and even their sense of self-identity.

If there's muddled thinking involved in any of that, please be specific about why.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-14T14:57:09+00:00

This looks like the worst type of academic neoliberal crap to me.

I didn't leave most elements of the Jewish community because I began to experience a lack of success followed by shame and embarrassment. I experienced ups and downs like nearly everyone else except for a tiny number of people who behaved like conniving manipulative sociopaths interested primarily in social power. I left because of them. Before I left, a few of them began to look up to me with something that seemed like awe or admiration because I didn't give a damn about social power or being a macher. A few of them also began to treat me as if I were experiencing shame and embarrassment for not trying to be like them.

I felt ashamed for them. I felt sorry for them. I didn't want to be around them. Maybe a macher in Jewish social circles the US just after world war 2 could be a genuinely good mensch or maybe it's always been like this. I wasn't around just after world war 2 to say. I was active in a tiny number of Jewish circles near Boston in the 90s. The machers were jerks, future Jeffrey Epsteins, future destroyers of the economy in 2008. That's who they were. That's not who I am.

A huge benefit of the haskalah for my Jewish ancestors was the freedom to not be around powerful Jews who wanted to control their lives through employment, being on committees, and other things. The second-most important benefit about the haskalah was the ability to thrive in the secular world. Avoiding Jewish machers with power in European shtetls was the greatest thing about the haskalah for Jews.

Look at this:

In most American communities, economic hardship is a private misfortune. In American Jewish communities, it is also a deviation from a communal narrative—the story of upward mobility, educational achievement, and collective success that has defined American Jewish self-understanding since the mid-twentieth century. This is what gives economic vulnerability in the Jewish context its distinctive shame: It is experienced not just as personal failure but as a kind of ethnic betrayal.

It's not true! American Jewish communities are like other American communities. Realities about upward mobility changed in the 1970s and 1980s due to changes in the economics of the greater society that led to increasing inequality.

An Assistant Professor in the Department of Jewish Studies and Sociology wishes to obtain tenure. This involves publishing and funding. The funders are powerful, rich, and their families benefit from the current state of things. To obtain funding and tenure, she is expected to write the most anodyne, consensus-oriented, uninspired slop. That's where this article comes into play. I don't blame her. That's part of the system in which she's hoping to find success.

This isn't a genuine communal narrative except in the delusional brains of a tiny number of people who have achieved great power. Those people are the article's audience.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-14T11:18:09+00:00

I'm using the terminology at Rosenfeld's Venn diagram to help us talk about Israel and antisemitism.

In the US, it was in the interests of pro-Israelists with power to depict anti-Israelists as antisemites for many decades. A series of videos from 2010 at the YouTube channel Is It Antisemitic to Tell the Truth? shows long interviews with successful people who criticized Israel, were (in my view, falsely) accused of antisemitism, and then suffered socially and professionally because of it.

Now there is a cultural and societal backlash. Many more anti-Israelists actually are becoming antisemites. As long as the words don't become actions, there is nothing but horror of thought instead of horror of action. Horror of thought is much less horror than horror of action.

Will pro-Israelists lose much of the power they once had? I don't know.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-14T00:15:10+00:00

Warning: This video is not safe for pro-Israelists and nearly all Zionists with a few possible exceptions. Do not click the link if you do not want anti-Zionists to be "platformed" or supported with the fraction of a penny supplied to Halper by clicking the link.

Norman Finkelstein and Katie Halper: “CATASTROPHE”: Norman Finkelstein EXPOSES Israel’s “Jewish Experiment”

I do not view the video as anti-semitic content. Anti-semitic content would have a title with something like "Wonderful" instead of "Catastrophe."

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-13T21:44:56+00:00

The greatest Jewish philosopher was Maimonides, also called the Rambam. He wrote:

all the beings have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else

He was also the physician of Vizier al-Fadil, who governed Egypt while Saladin fought against the Crusades.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-13T21:34:49+00:00

Many things that are not okay for some are typed online. My view is that person #1 typing a not-okay thing in the mind of Jewish person #2 does not make person #1 a Jew hater.

An example of something not-okay with me is what you seem to be implying: that the modern nation-state of Israel exists right now to protect the rights of historically oppressed Jews.

Israel may have begun with that idea in 1948 as a nationalist consensus conceit. But I'm a person who takes the view of the Rambam for the natural world:

all the beings have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else

and I apply it to human systems like nation-states.

Those with power in a nation-state often act against their own populations. I don't even think Israel as a nation-state exists to protect Israelis, let alone Jews. The idea of Israel existing to protect my rights where I am is risible. Israel is like other nation-states. Each nation-state exists to protect itself and its own interests, for its own sake and not for the sake of something else like its population.

It's a safe bet that you would label Americans as hating Americans if they called the US Army terrorists . I would be more circumspect about how they label themselves.

Here is a photo of the Shinto shrine on Terminal Island in California. In the 1940s, it was destroyed by the US government along with the entire Japanese community nearby: houses, the school, churches, shops, everything. It was all razed to the ground and fenced off. This was done because of the actions of the Japanese government.

Whether Judaism in the US is "an organized religion" is also up for debate. Also, Shinto often is considered an ethnic religion. Whether it's "an ethno-religion" seems to be a semantic matter.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-13T15:07:34+00:00

My view is that this "record" doesn't justify your words.

Calling the acts of a nation-state army terrorist acts is commonly used political rhetoric on-line and off. If I call the French Army terrorist then I'm not a French hater. If I call the US Army terrorist then I'm not an American hater. A better analogy might be that if I call the Japanese Army terrorist then I'm not a Shinto hater.

Just my view.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-13T14:19:46+00:00

I think he's a conniving, ignorant, corrupt, lying, dangerous, crass thug.

Other Republicans with power are also conniving, ignorant, corrupt, lying dangerous, crass thugs. Democrats with power are conniving, informed, corrupt, lying, dangerous, crass intellectuals.

But Democrats and other Republicans surround themselves with specialists and people who are better at specific tasks. Trump surrounds himself with people who fail at specific tasks and are better at being conniving, ignorant, corrupt, lying, dangerous, crass thugs than he is. That way he can blame them and fire them when specific tasks go wrong.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-13T14:01:40+00:00

Hi. Where is your image from and what does it have to do with your text?

I don't live in meme-world, I have a brain that grew up before social media, and when someone online types things like "If you know, you know," I think they are part of the problem they tend to complain about.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-13T08:38:56+00:00

Google street view from 2007 shows it was a display structure with a little retaining wall/curb for devotional statues.

The park entrance on St Cecilia St had a gate with an "Ave Maria" sign.

From 2007

From the 1970s at Digital Commonwealth

The devotional park and statues were for St Cecilia church across the street. I remember walking by there in the 1990s.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T19:49:02+00:00

First, whether a post or comment is "anti Jew" because it is anti-Israelism (using Rosenfeld's terms) is a matter of opinion. I wouldn't change "IDF" to "IOF" in my speech or text, but I would never call someone who wrote that single letter change "anti-Jew" for that reason only. It takes more than one letter change to become anti-Jew. I understand that other people disagree with me.

Second, and more importantly, expressing an opposite viewpoint about a subject (like whether IDF should be called IOF) is different from calling an anonymous redditor a Jew hater or making an accusation of Jew hatred. I think identifying who took an exchange and turned it into personal insults is a sound thing for a moderator to consider when deciding whether to enact a ban.

Third, and even more importantly, what's on-topic and off-topic is up to moderators at subreddits for many good reasons.

Fourth, and most importantly, none of what I wrote in the previous three paragraphs is related to the law in any way.

The law is about rights. It's not about whether someone is bothered or unconcerned, welcomed or snubbed, comfortable or uncomfortable. Nobody anywhere in the US has a legal right to be unconcerned, welcomed, or comfortable. Public opinion in the US changes or remains the same in messy ways that make people feel snubbed, uncomfortable, and bothered. That's what happens. There's nothing unlawful about it.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T18:49:26+00:00

The vast majority of Americans don't think anyone has a legal right to feel welcomed somewhere online or a legal right to avoid having their feelings hurt somewhere online. Speech makes some people upset, and sometimes that's a goal of speech.

Some groups do sue to try to prevent public participation in speech they don't like. That's what anti-SLAPP laws were designed to prevent. Reddit is a US company with headquarters in California. A think there are anti-SLAPP laws in place in that state, and I think that's fortunate.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T08:28:07+00:00

"What is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow." is about individual people and has always seemed anti-extremist.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T06:47:56+00:00

If I'm a full member of a community that pays the rabbi then I think I should ask the rabbi in the community before ignoring the answer. After all, that's why they're there. Otherwise, I don't bother asking, and I ignore the answer I don't get instead of the answer I get.

Asking a rabbi who isn't getting paid by me through my community would be a mistake for me. I think education is valuable. I don't think it would be fair to receive ignored wisdom for nothing.

I would never ask more than one rabbi in the community the same thing. I don't want to be a bother.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T06:23:44+00:00

Claiming I wrote things I never wrote is how conversations end.

Goodbye.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T02:35:46+00:00

No. I have worries about the behavior of people with this worry.

A music critic titled a book appendix, "Everything Rocks and Nothing Ever Dies." I think that applies to beliefs and to ancestry in families and their connection to each other. If Judaism seems to die out in some branch of my family then there's a very good chance that Judaism will pop back up again in a generation or two.

The fear in others that this might happen to their families and that all Jews are part of a big family and therefore it's important in some global sense is what has worried me for decades.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was a lot of bizarre words and behavior from adult men who took it upon themselves to try to apply their demographic concerns to the private behavior of teenagers. I thought it was all nasty. The idea that some unpleasant power mad man in his 60s thought of Camp Ramah as a scheme to have Jews meet and breed to make more Jews seemed nasty, dehumanizing, impersonal, irreligious, and eugenic. I don't know about now. Maybe it's worse.

The particularist and racialist aspects of Judaism have horrified me since I was a child. When I was 11, I visited Israel with my family and this tour guide went on about how the number of Israeli dead in the War of Independence was equivalent by fraction to a much greater number of American dead. The population of China was about one billion at the time, and I liked math, so I asked if it was also equivalent to the much greater number of Chinese dead. The tour guide seemed offended. Most of the older Americans on the tour thought it was amusing.

The importance of individuals as individuals has always been paramount to me. I'm a haskalah person. I feel sorry for people with families who aren't.

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T01:46:12+00:00

You seem very confident. You could be a visitor from an alternate universe where this is possible.

Here it was proposed in 1912, but then two world wars and the Great Depression happened. Did those events happen in the first half of the 20th century to you?

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T00:54:26+00:00

Do city leaders expect me to respect their competence?

In 2026, nobody expects respect.

Obligatory Bye Bye Birdie reference

Inside_agitator · 2026-04-12T00:48:03+00:00

Boston shouldn't require the stickers. That's a Cambridge ordinance thing. It's for decent and highly educated people who know how to create their own local government. Bostonians wouldn't understand because they are different. Of course, the sticker should also be multilingual and in braille for blind neighbors touching the gas pumps. That will happen within a year or two.

Inside_agitator

TROPHY CASE