If the discourse on social media is any indication, youth comprise only 2.7% of the people discussing the Holocaust in western countries, a new analysis from the Vocativ start-up indicates.
The company, launched by entrepreneur Mati Kochavi, uses tools developed for intelligence agencies to parse events and trends on social media. Over the past year, Vocative has review hundreds of pages, groups, images, and keywords related to anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and Holocaust denial in 12 western nations.
The analysis identified 12,778,533 posts addressing the Holocaust, only 347,485 of which had been posted by people under 30.
More than half (59%) of the posts originated from users in the U.S., followed by Britain (11%) and Germany (8%). In addition, young people from Britain, France, and Austria were more active than their age-group peers in discourse about the Holocaust.
According to Vocative, out of all the young people who discussed the Holocaust on social media this past year, only 39% were women. Posts by women tended to focus more on the historical and personal aspects of the Holocaust, such as expression of empathy for survivors and the importance of keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive for future generations.
Discourse about the Holocaust on social media among males, on the other hand, was marked by a comparison of the Holocaust to current day politics and social issues, as well as by a call to take action against global anti-Semitism.
British young people on social media tended to use the Holocaust to condemn the "Israeli occupation" and Israeli military actions in Judea and Samaria. Many claimed that certain Israeli actions among the Palestinian population caused them to long for a repeat of the Holocaust. Discussion also compares Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany.
The Vocativ research also revealed that young social media users from Britain and Germany tended to use the Holocaust to promote political agendas. The analysis pointed out that some activists in France's "yellow vest" protests compared French President Emmanuel Macron to Hitler, and the protesters to the Jews in Nazi Germany.
Kochavi told Israel Hayom that "we are in a period of growing anti-Semitism and fake news, when it's hard to tell what is true and what isn't. That combination creates a dangerous platform that allows for increased expressions of Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, and neo-Nazism.
"Young people today know very little about the Holocaust, and as the number of survivors continues to shrink, the challenge of preserving the memory of the Holocaust is more important than ever. We must find the right way to broadcast the story of the Holocaust to young people and adolescents in Israel and worldwide, and make the subject relevant to them," Kochavi said.
