Lead
Australia's Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has spent two weeks examining how social media platforms detect and respond to what has been described as a "cesspool of Jew hatred" online. Meta, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn were among the companies that fronted the inquiry, but X Corp was notably absent, prompting criticism from counsel assisting the commission.
Coverage comparison
TikTok's global head of policy, trust and safety, Zachary Hecht, told the commission that about 98 per cent of harmful content on the platform was automatically removed before it could be seen by users in Australia in the first quarter of the year. He said all content was assessed for compliance with community guidelines at the point of upload by automatic moderation tools, and that antisemitic content was explicitly prohibited under the platform's safety and civility guidelines.
The commission also heard evidence from extremism researcher Hannah Rose of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who testified that extremists use coded language and memes to evade detection. Far-right individuals, she said, had adopted memes to push "more palatable" antisemitism that is less likely to be picked up by moderators.
Key claims
- X Corp failed to acknowledge the inquiry, despite multiple attempts to contact the company in May and June, including a notice to produce documents sent to Australian-based solicitors who had previously represented the platform. By the last day of the hearing block, counsel assisting Richard Lancaster SC said: "Although an apparent proponent of unrestrained speech, X has remained silent."
- Mr Lancaster singled out X and Telegram for their complete refusal to engage with the work of the commission, and said evidence from expert witnesses and victims of online hate showed X was a "key perpetrator in the proliferation of antisemitic hate in the online environment".
- Mr Lancaster revisited evidence given by eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant that X fought a decision to prohibit publication of a video showing victims in the immediate aftermath of the Bondi Beach terror attack. He said X had argued "notorious depictions of historic and political significance are available online" and included "page after page of images of the Holocaust" in its submission appealing that decision. "It was extraordinary of X to deploy those images," Mr Lancaster said, adding they gave no support to the contention that a video made in 2025 showing the deceased after the Bondi Hanukkah attack should be permitted.
- Meta's policy boss Benjamin Good defended the platform's hateful conduct rules.
- YouTube defended its decision to allow content accusing a terror attack victim of being a false flag actor.
- TikTok removed about 98 per cent of harmful content proactively before a user report, according to Mr Hecht. The inquiry heard more than 336 million videos were posted to TikTok in 2025, with more than 270,000 removed under safety and civility guidelines.
- Extremists use different codes to avoid content moderation, Ms Rose testified. "They'll change a letter in a word to a number to avoid content moderation," she said, adding they use emojis and memes so that antisemitism is "only necessarily identifiable to an individual who knows the context of that meme already and is able to interpret it in that way". She noted that antisemitism is not always illegal or in violation of platform terms of service, and that extremists are adept at staying under the line of detection on mainstream platforms.
- Ms Rose said the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas let "antisemitism out of the box". She reported a 51-fold increase in the volume of antisemitic content on YouTube videos about the conflict immediately after the attack, and noted several spikes in antisemitic content posted by Australian users in 2025, including on June 13 and June 22 during the conflict between Israel and Iran, and on September 10 after the killing of US conservative activist Charlie Kirk, when people made antisemitic claims based on conspiracy theories that Israel had been involved.