Is Social Media Fueling Hate? The recent mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh has brought public attention to hate speech on social media.

• Author: Bubar, Joe
• Position: Cover story

It was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history: In October, a gunman armed with an AR-15style assault rifle and at least three handguns barged in on Saturday morning prayers at "free of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killed 11 members of the congregation, and wounded four police officers and two others.

As the nation mourned the tragedy, the hate that had spawned it continued to swell on social media, with anti-Semitic videos and images surging on Instagram. Just two days later, a search for the word Jews revealed 11,696 posts with the hashtag #jewsdid911, falsely claiming that Jews had orchestrated the September 11 terror attacks. Other hashtags on Instagram referenced Nazi ideology.

The Instagram posts demonstrate a stark reality. Social media sites have given people from all over the world a platform to make their voices heard--and that includes white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other extremists, who are increasingly using these networks as megaphones to spread disinformation and hate speech.

"Social media is emboldening people to cross the line and push the envelope on what they are willing to say to provoke and to incite," says Jonathan Albright of Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism. "The problem is clearly expanding."

In the wake of the Pittsburgh shooting, many are now calling on social media companies to do more to regulate hate speech. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook (which owns Instagram) have already invested millions of dollars in trying to identify and remove such speech. But determining how to weed out hate speech and disinformation while also protecting free speech has been a challenge.

Enabling Extremists?

Many experts say that social media is helping to fuel real violence. Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise in the U.S., according to the Anti-Defamation League (A.D.L.). In 2017, the A.D.L. reports, there were 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents, such as harassment, vandalism, and physical assaults. That's an increase of almost 60 percent from the year before--the largest jump in the U.S. since the A.D.L. started keeping track in 1979.

Hate crimes against other minority groups are also increasing. A recent report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) found that hate crimes rose 17 percent last year.

"Social media companies have created, allowed, and enabled extremists to move their message from the margins to the mainstream," says Jonathan A. Greenblatt, chief executive of the A.D.L. "In...