Any lessons learned last April at France24 Arabic after CAMERA Arabic exposed unfiltered hate speech thriving on the social media platforms of the publicly-funded French network were apparently as fleeting as a Middle Eastern summer rain.
While editors quickly deleted or heavily edited nearly all of the vile antisemitic talkbacks on its YouTube and Facebook channels which CAMERA Arabic had flagged earlier this spring, a fresh review of new content reveals that unchecked bigoted rhetoric is again rampant on France24’s Arabic talkbacks.
Thus, in France24 Arabic Facebook posts covering a terror attack targeting Jewish Israeli civilians in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market (April 24, 2023, five wounded) and a deadly terror attack near Hermesh in the northern West Bank (May 30, 2023, one civilian dead), more than a third of the comments expressed joy over the targeting and murder of civilians.
Moreover, the Facebook and Twitter posts covering Jerusalem’s June 1 pride parade served as a particularly strong magnet for raw hatred. Over 100 comments, more than a third of all those published on the two posts, included rabid bigotry either towards Jews, LGBT folks or both. Among the lowlights were pronouncements including: “restarting the Holocaust anew is required,” “they defile the Holy Land, may Allah take them,” and “your end is near, Allah’s willing.”
The Twitter post in particular drew a high ratio of hateful comments. Given that Twitter responses cannot be deleted by anyone except the commentator, previous experience should have taught France24 Arabic that content addressing both Jewish and LGBT affairs would draw an avalanche of hate, and therefore the network’s account administrators should have prevented the orgy of hate by blocking comments in advance.
Screenshots of a sampling of the Facebook and Twitter comments spewing hatred towards Jews and the LGBT community follow:
