About Us
Preventing real-world violence against Jews by stopping it online
Why Online Antisemitism?
At FOA, our mission is to prevent real-world violence against Jews by addressing it at its online roots.
In 2018, Robert Bowers walked into Shabbat morning services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and murdered 11 Jews. Before his rampage, Bowers posted a hate-filled rant on Gab. He wrote “Jews are the children of Satan” and that he wanted all of them to die.
In 2020, antisemitic attacks against Jews increased as well as calls that Jews invented Covid19.
October 2023 antisemitism on social media tripled, with a significant portion containing anti-Israel and anti-Zionist content, inciting violence against Jews and support for terrorist organizations like Hamas. From Holocaust denial to targeted attacks blaming Jews for the Covid19 pandemic, the Jewish community faces widespread discrimination and bigotry across various platforms. We believe that by removing antisemitic content from the online sphere, we can prevent real-world violence, and prevent the next Pittsburgh shooting.
What we Do
By leveraging the power of global volunteers and utilizing a unique AI system, FOA has been able to monitor, report, and remove significant amounts of antisemitic content from various social media platforms, thus preventing real-world violence against Jews.
- Manual Monitoring: Our global network of volunteers monitors and reports antisemitic content on their own social accounts, in over 10 languages.
- Enhanced AI Monitoring: Our proprietary AI-driven system identifies and categorizes antisemitic posts using targeted keywords and hashtags in multiple languages.
- Impact: We remove posts, deactivate groups, and ban accounts that violate social media guidelines.
- Training Workshops: We offer workshops and online bootcamps to teach individuals how to identify and effectively report antisemitic content on social media.
- Academic Partnerships: Collaborating with 12 universities and 50 high schools in Israel to provide volunteer scholarships and academic credit. We also do in-person training sessions for Israeli students on how to combat antisemitism online.
- Impact: Over 7,000 volunteer hours logged, with 5,000 program participants from countries including Israel, Brazil, the US, Canada, Switzerland, Belarus, and the UK.
- Cyber Team: Dedicated team specialized in social media behavior that tracks and analyzes content related to terrorism and violence.lized in social media behavior.
- Impact: Successfully penetrated 30 terror groups on platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, preventing terrorist activity
- Policy Advocacy: We work closely with social networks to remove harmful content and advocate for hate speech policy updates
- Trusted Flagger Status: Our priority status ensures antisemitic content we report is reviewed and removed swiftly, and we can appeal decisions that incorrectly allow such posts to stay online
- Account Recovery: We help restore accounts unfairly deactivated due to false reports
- Driving Policy Changes: We push for policy reforms by providing social networks with data and actionable insights on antisemitic trends
- Impact
- Played a key role in Meta’s decision to include “Zionist” as a racial slur in its hate speech policy and currently working on policy changes related to the phrase “from the river to the sea.”
- Assisted in retrieving and reactivating influencer accounts that were wrongfully banned
- Functionality: Our AI system collects and categorizes antisemitic content using advanced algorithms and data from both AI and human sources.
- Continuous Improvement: The system learns from volunteer feedback to enhance accuracy and adapt to new trends and antisemitic keywords.
Our Founder
Tomer Aldubi
Founder and Executive Director
Tomer Aldubi founded FOA in 2020 to tackle the growing issue of online antisemitism. As the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, Tomer understands the dangers of hate and the real-world impact of the incitement of violence. Before starting FOA, he led “Israeli Students Combating Antisemitism,” a program supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Union of Israeli Students.
As the Founder and Executive Director of FOA, Tomer is also a prominent lecturer focusing on educational programming about cyberhate and antisemitism. His expertise covers modern antisemitism, the dark side of social media, and trends in online hate.
