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Journalist who flagged up hate trend quits Twitter

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The Jewish journalist who shed a light on the tactic used by far-right activists to identify Jews on Twitter so they can be attacked has quit the social media platform over its handling of antisemitic abuse.

Jon Weisman’s New York Times article on May 26 highlighted how the extremist alt-right movement in the US tweets with brackets - known as an “echo” - around Jews’ names to flag them up for fellow extremists to attack.

In a series of tweets yesterday, Mr Weisman condemned the way that Twitter had responded to the antisemitic attacks that he and other prominent Jews have been subjected to on the site.

He wrote: “One of the Times’ social media gurus went through the worst of the Nazi antisemites and forwarded them to @twitter.”

He then alleged that Twitter had responded by claiming none of the posts had broken the website’s rules.

The hate tweets highlighted by Mr Weisman included one which called him a “k***,” and another calling for him to be put “in the oven.” They have since been deleted.

He continued: “So I will be moving to Facebook where at least people need to use their real names and can't hide behind fakery to spread their hate.

“I will leave @twitter to the racists, the antisemites, the Bernie Bros who attacked women reporters yesterday. Maybe Twitter will rethink”.

Reports yesterday showed supporters of Jewish presidential candidate Bernie Sanders abusing female journalists on Twitter.

Twitter has refused to speak about the issue specifically, adding that the company does not “comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons,” according to CNN.

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