Hate in plain sight
CyberWell, working alongside a nonprofit trusted partner of Meta (Facebook, Instagram and Threads), TikTok and YouTube to combat online antisemitism, has identified a rapidly expanding trend of coded antisemitic hate speech that uses emojis and coded language to target Jews across social platforms.
Illustrative: Social-media companies displayed on a smartphone. Credit: Twin Design/Shutterstock
As Meta’s Oversight Board opens a new case examining the rise of “algospeak” and the use of racist emojis targeting Black athletes and other marginalized communities, CyberWell is highlighting how this same coded language is rapidly proliferating across social media and harming minority groups globally.
Within this broader context, CyberWell submitted public comment to Meta’s Oversight Board and issued multiple real-time alerts to social media platforms, detailing parallel patterns in online antisemitism. CyberWell’s research shows how the same dynamics affecting Black communities online are also fueling use of coded antisemitic hate speech, including the use of terms such as “juice” and “tiny hat” as well as emojis including 🧃, 👃, 🤑, 🐷, 🐀, 🐒, 😈, 👿 and 👹 to dehumanize Jews, spread conspiracy theories and evade moderation.
“Even if these posts feature dumbed down ‘algospeak’, this content represent a troubling, sophisticated evolution of digital antisemitism and evasion tactics,” said CyberWell Founder and CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor. “Users are leveraging emojis as algospeak and those intending to spread antisemitism are leveraging the symbols to post classic tropes and dehumanizing rhetoric.”
Across English and Arabic content, CyberWell found that the majority of emojis and code words categorise Jews into four dehumanising archetypes: animals, devils, proxies and classic tropes. Animal emojis such as (🐷, 🐀, 🐒) compare Jews to pigs, rats and monkeys. Devil emojis (😈, 👿, 👹) portray Jews as evil or satanic. Proxy code words such as “tiny hat,” “juice,” and the juice box emoji (🧃) are used to circulate conspiracy theories about Jewish global control or moral corruption. Many examples flagrantly violate platform moderation policies yet manage to evade moderation tools and flagging mechanisms through the use of coded language and emojis.
On TikTok, CyberWell recently found 64 accounts using “Jill Kews” as code for “Kill Jews.” After CyberWell alerted the platform through its trusted partner channel, TikTok removed and banned the large majority of the accounts.
“Antisemitic actors have learned to weaponize tools meant for communication,” Cohen Montemayor said. “Emojis now function as coded cues that allow users to signal bigoted beliefs and harass Jews without explicitly naming them. We have seen this coded language become particularly popular after the roll out of generative AI applications and tools, that have similarly been abused by extremists and antisemites to flood platforms with anti-Jewish and Holocaust revisionism content guised as humor and through mediums like cartoons and Pixar-styled characters.”
The emoji-based antisemitism is not limited to initial posts alone but is also overwhelmingly present in memes, reels and comments, including replies that only use emojis (without any accompanying text). In Arabic posts, animal emojis sometimes reference Quranic interpretations, while English posts often use emojis tied to New Testament language. Emojis also accompany Holocaust distortion, the “Khazarian” myth and “Synagogue of Satan” narratives.
“Often emoji-based hate because is minimized or dismissed because it can look humorous or vague,” Cohen Montemayor added. “But this coded language leaves a deep negative impact on Jewish users online and further normalizes a climate of antisemitism in the digital universe.”
In its alerts, CyberWell has urged social media platforms and recent expert comment to the Oversight Board, that is currently reviewing a case related coded language targeting the Black community, to enhance detection of posts that combine emojis with antisemitic keywords, flag high risk combinations involving “juice,” the juice box emoji, “tiny hat” and “Synagogue of Satan,” ensure consistent multilingual enforcement and train human moderators to identify emoji-based antisemitism and comment section evasions.
