NEW YORK — An anonymous Twitter account that “mooed” at anti-Semitic tweeters before quitting the platform returned Jan. 4 to take the platform to task one last time.
Antisemitism Cow (Screenshots from Twitter)
“You have failed the people who use this platform,” “Antisemitism Cow” tweeted, tagging Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey.
“There is no excuse for your allowing Nazis with tens of thousands of followers to run rampant on your platform. You let it happen. Because of that, blood is on your hands.”
In a thread, Antisemitism Cow said no one should use Twitter until the platform addresses the hate on its platform in a meaningful way.
“I am quitting because no one person should subject themselves to witnessing and calling out the hate that you’ve allowed to fester here. This is your job, and until you do it properly, no sane or good person should use your platform,” the account said.
Critics have called on Twitter for years to address the anti-Semitic, hateful and harassing comments that are frequently made on the platform.
A study by the Network Contagion Research Institute last year found that anti-Semitic tropes tend to peak online around tense moments in the US, including before the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
During the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd last spring, tweets about George Soros, a billionaire and funder of progressive causes who is Jewish and whose name can be a shorthand for anti-Semitism, spiked to 500,000 tweets per day, according to the ADL.
In October, Twitter announced it would ban Holocaust denial on its platform in the same week that Facebook announced the same thing. The ban was an attempt by Twitter to crack down on hate on the platform ahead of the 2020 presidential election, but critics have accused Twitter of failing to do enough to ban anti-Semitism, even prompting a 48-hour boycott by a group of British celebrities.
Since starting the account in July, Antisemitism Cow attracted more than 23,000 followers by mooing at accounts it deemed to be engaging in anti-Semitism.
Followers often tagged the account in replies to tweets they believed were anti-Semitic so that Antisemitism Cow could issue its verdict.
Antisemitism Cow deactivated in November and, in an interview with Alma, called Twitter “a system that, by definition, creates a poisonous dynamic between people.”
As if to prove Antisemitism Cow’s point, an anonymous copycat account called Antisemite Cow launched this month. But rather than calling out anti-Semitism, the account engaged in it, mooing at Jewish accounts.
“I’m a simple cow that moos at Semitic people,” the Antisemite Cow description reads.
Antisemitism Cow ended the tweet thread by signing off the platform for good.
“This account shouldn’t exist because Twitter is not worth fighting for,” it said. “Twitter is a cesspool of pain and misery. While you play with cute features to make it seem like you care about ‘positive engagement,’ your body count grows. I’m not playing the game anymore. Bye.”
