Controversial Millions Rise For Australia group fuels anti-Semitic hatred online
Disgusting anti-Semitic comments blaming the Jewish community for the coronavirus pandemic have appeared on a messaging app linked to an anti-lockdown group.
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A leading anti-defamation group has slammed conspiracy theorists for posting a series of anti-Semitic posts online blaming the Jewish community for the coronavirus pandemic.
The Leader has been sent several screenshots from the Millions Rise For Australia group, which has thousands of members on popular messaging app Telegram, revealing shocking images saying: “Ignore the kike media! Only gas awaits them”.
Some of the posts, which were too graphic for the Leader to publish, also included a series of images blaming the Jewish community for the coronavirus pandemic and 9/11.
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich said extremists were using the pandemic to spread hate and incitement.
“The fact the pages of this group are clotted with slurs and disgusting anti-Semitic images means that what is being created here is a dangerous echo chamber of bigoted rhetoric that is frightening in its intensity,” Dr Abramovich said.
“We know that online incitement and propaganda can feed acts of violence, and what are seeing here is the old blood libel of medieval times that blamed Jews for causing the Black Death plague now being reconfigured to fit this modern global crisis.
“We call on Telegram to immediately deplatform this group as Facebook has done.”
Last week, The Millions Rise For Australia, which had more than 116,000 members, was deleted by Facebook.
The group rejected coronavirus restrictions, saying they were “unlawful” and shared other posts making outrageous claims about vaccinations and 5G.
It’s understood the page was deleted after heavily promoting the national Freedom Day protest on Saturday, September 5.
Several new groups were created on Facebook and other social media platforms, with one of them already having almost 8000 members.
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