If you've spent any time on social media, especially recently, there's a good chance you've come across hateful or racist content.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), a leading global Jewish human rights organization, released its yearly Digital Terror and Hate Report Card on Thursday, and the results are not great.
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With so many platforms cutting back or deleting their consistent moderation protocols, it might not be too surprising to hear that most grades fall between C and F.
"I'm sorry to say that some of these companies have made the decision to hand the world's largest megaphones to people who we know will use that megaphone to spread hateful content," Vlad Khaykin with SWC in L.A. said of the major social media platforms.
According to the report, Facebook and Instagram received a C-, while Google, YouTube, and TikTok all received Cs, WhatsApp and X received Ds, and Telegram received an F.
Digital Terror and Hate Report Card 2025https://wiesenthal.org/
Khaykin helped put the report together, and he told KNX News' Emily Valdez that the result is a digital world filled with polarizing content aimed at dividing Americans, and in some cases, that is by design.
"Some of these actors are actually state-level actors," he said. "These are intelligence services, be it Qatari, be it Iranian intelligence operatives, be it Russian or Chinese operatives, pumping various kinds of content into the United States with a certain agenda, and that agenda is, in part, to divide Americans against themselves."
Khaykin said he'd like to see more regulation and accountability.
SWC's Urgent Recommendations are:
-- Reinstate and enforce recently eliminated moderation policies.
-- Permanently ban terror-linked accounts.
-- Implement a strategy to identify and disrupt state-sponsored digital disinformation campaigns.
-- Publicly commit to fund digital literacy initiatives.
-- Require platform transparency on algorithmic decision-making.
You can read the full report here.
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