Twitter has been accused of giving the green light to anti-Semitism after refusing to remove a tweet branding Jews ‘absolutely vile’ because it was ‘not abusive’.
The post, which referred to orthodox Jews in an area of north-east London, read: ‘Drove through Stamford Hill today. F*** me the gaffs[sic] riddled with full blown Jews. Absolutely vile.’
A local community leader who reported the message to Twitter but was told it would not be taken down as there was ‘no violation of rules regarding abusive behaviour’.
The tweet, which referred to orthodox Jews in an area of north-east London, was posted by ‘part-time disk jockey’ Thomas Andrews
Stamford Hill is home to more than 20,000 Haredi Jews, the largest orthodox community in Britain
The anti-Semitic tweet was posted by ‘part time disk jockey’ Thomas Andrews at 8.40pm on October 14 and reported to Twitter at 9.03pm.
Other users branded the message ‘vile’ and subsequently attacked the social media giant’s decision not to remove it.
Labour MP John Mann claimed Twitter’s decision not to remove the post showed it had ‘absolutely no interest’ in clamping down on hate speech.
He told MailOnline: ‘Twitter has got no interest whatsoever in moderating this kind of content. This company repeatedly allows offensive and bullying materials.’
Mr Mann announced he would be pushing for a change in the law to make social media giants liable for hate speech hosted on their networks.
‘I will be proposing in the New Year a change in the law to make Twitter liable for these kinds of vile comments,’ he said.
Following the storm of criticism from members of the public Mr Andrews deleted the post and made his account private, tweeting an apology at 10.21pm
‘Rightly, newspapers and the broadcast media can held to account but Twitter can’t be.’
Following the storm of criticism from members of the public Mr Andrews deleted the post and made his account private, tweeting an apology at 10.21pm.
This read: ‘I apologise for this tweet. It was extremely naive and disrespectful of me. I wasn’t aware of the area’s culture but have since seen sense.’
Stamford Hill is home to more than 20,000 Haredi Jews, the largest orthodox community in Britain.
Twitter’s actions were condemned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, who accused of letting hate speech run ‘out of control’.
Dr Daniel Allington, Head of Online Monitoring and Investigations, told MailOnline: ‘Once again, utterly brazen antisemitism has been given the green light on Twitter.
‘Twitter claims that every report of racist abuse is reviewed by a highly-trained team, but it seems to have no clear understanding of the difference between free speech and hate speech.’
Dr Allington, from Leicester University, said a brief Twitter search would uncover the huge amount of anti-Semitic material tolerated by the social media giant.
Local community leader Shulem Stern, who reported the message to Twitter, was told it would not be taken down as there was ‘no violation of rules regarding abusive behaviour’
He added: ‘In seconds, you can find tweets filled with anti-Jewish propaganda, including material originally produced by the Nazis.
‘The problem is out of control – it’s no wonder that governments around the world are now telling Twitter that it will face enormous fines unless it cleans up its act.’
Twitter, when given a chance to defend its policy on hate speech, said: ‘We do not comment on individual cases for security reasons.’
It comes days after CEO Jack Dorsey admitted in the company is not doing enough to protect its users from sexist and racist abuse.
Web giants told to reveal true scale of abuse as government seeks to tame ‘Wild West’ of the Internet
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley wants Internet giants to clamp down on abuse
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley recently unveiled an ‘internet safety strategy’ to ensure web firms face up to their responsibilities on curbing abuse.
Social media companies will for the first time be told to publish how many complaints they get each year about abuse.
They will also be forced to disclose what proportion of abusive messages are actually taken down.
Ministers want the firms to publish an annual ‘internet safety transparency report’, laying out what efforts were made to moderate content.
All the information will be publicly available, enabling parents to shine a light on which social media firms are taking their social responsibilities seriously.
The move follows years of complaints about web firms not acting quickly enough to take down abusive messages.
MPs – particularly female MPs – have also complained of the rising tide of online abuse.
Thousands of abusive tweets were sent to shadow home secretary Diane Abbott alone during the election campaign.