Tag Archives: Social media

Take My Mother To Work Day: CyberWell

29 Nov

A recent trip to Israel gave me an opportunity to visit my daughter’s jobsite.  The last time I visited her on the job, she worked at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Jaffa.  She was using her education and experience to help create peace in the Middle East, definitely a difficult aspiration.  Her new job focus has switched to stopping the rise of antisemitism and Jew-hate speech on social media platforms.  My daughter has always wanted to make the world a better place.

CyberWell is a start-up NGO founded by Tal-Or Cohen, an attorney and American-Israeli who saw that Jew-hatred was growing on social media.  She thought her expertise in law and her experience researching extremist movements In the US on social media would work together as astart to combating this growing problem.   She founded CyberWell as an ethical high tech non-profit with the aim to make social media less hateful.

A colleague of my daughter’s from the Peres Center is a close friend of Tal-Or’s, and recommended that my daughter could help in this quest.

In October of 2021, my daughter joined the team.  In May 2022, the site came online, first as Global ARC, now recently renamed CyberWell. The work of CyberWell is to document social media hate speech directed mainly at Jews and Israel, to report this hate speech to the social media platforms and to get it removed in all instances.  Recently when the artist, Ye, formally Kanye, started posting antisemitic tropes on social media, CyberWell could track the major increase in hate speech.  Their documentation of the data is being used by others working to stop this rise of hatred and have social media adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. 

Tal-Or Cohen has been cited in several articles about this effort. In ‘the algemeiner,” she is quoted: “’Data must be the cornerstone of our fight against online antisemitism,’ said Tal-Or Cohen, the CEO of CyberWell, the company that provided the data for the antisemitic tweets recorded in the letter. ‘In the face of skyrocketing digital Jew-hatred, social media platforms should take meaningful actions and integrate the IHRA definition into their community standards.’”

My daughter’s job is behind the scenes. As Program and Ops Manager, she organizesand searches for ways to connect with others who would support the mission of CyberWell and work with the organization on this important endeavor. You can learn more about the team and CyberWell by going to the website: https://cyberwell.org/our-team/

My visit to CyberWell and its offices near the Sarona area of Tel Aviv was enlightening.  The offices are housed in a shared office space, Panthera, that was started by a woman who wanted to give other women entrepreneurs a chance.  The space is perfect.  CyberWell has two small offices side by side for the four people who currently work on site. But there are lots of shared spaces for conferences and meetings.  There is also a wonderful event space that can be rented for events or can be used by people who work there to have meals.  My favorite area was the outdoor patio that can be accessed from the shared space. They have found a wonderful place to work while trying to clean up social media.

Tal-Or, Vered, Lara and I shared a lunch in the Sarona Market, where they told me more about what they were doing, what type of hatred they were seeing on line, and their plans to tackle and try to end antisemitism and other hate speech on social media.

Vered, Tal-Or, Lara. The CyberWell team.

It is a lofty plan, one that I think is well worth the effort.

In my role as one of their greatest fans, I gave them as much positive reinforcement as any mother could and I treated them to lunch.  Honestly it made me kvell to be with these three young women who are trying to do good in the world.  

I have many friends who fear that the hatred against Jews right now is similar to what happened in 1930s in Nazi Germany and Europe. But I see a major difference. Jews are not keeping quiet. We have many who are pushing back. CyberWell is one such company. If you wish to help them in their work, you can join their mission or support them by emailing hello@cyberwell.org or donating through their 501(c)3 fiscal sponsors here.

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Check Your Posts, Don’t Spread MisInformation!

26 Jul

When my daughter started high school in the year 2000, just 20 years ago. The internet was still new enough that some teachers were concerned about information that the students would get online using websites and not just books and magazines.  Would it be real? Would it be fake?  The librarian put together a group of parents who volunteered to check websites to make sure the information the students would find was accurate.

 I volunteered to be one of these parents.  I did this for two years. Every week or so, I would be sent a list of websites to check out. Which I did immediately.  To be honest, after being a research assistant for a professor in college, then getting a master’s degree in journalism, searching for the truth was something that I loved doing. This was the perfect volunteer position.

My search or need for truth reverberated in my family as well.  When my children got in trouble, they knew the rule. Tell me truthfully what happened. You will face consequences, but it will not be too bad as long as you tell the truth.  Tell a lie and the consequences doubled.  I hate lies.

That is my biggest problem with social media: the lies; the misinformation; the harmful memes that express false information.  I especially hate when a photo from 2, or 3, or7 years ago is used to say this happened now.  Like a photo of a vandalized replica of the Vietnam War Memorial which inferred that Black Life Matters protestors vandalized the memorial in Washington DC.  Sorry that photo was four years old; Had nothing to do with Black Life Matters; and was a replica of the wall, not the real.  So, of course, I had to post the truth in the comments.

The number of misinformed posts disheartens me.  I have to do something!!

I decided that my new calling was to rout out these lies and the false information on Facebook.  It offends me that the powers that be allow these lies to rotate through again and again. It horrifies me that sometimes people leave the false post up even when multitude of people tell them it is fake or false.  I feel much better when people take the fake meme or photo or article down!  It is a disservice to humanity.

There are people out there whose main purpose in life seems to be to sow discord and distrust among us.  But I also know there are governments who do that as well.  On Fareed Zackaria GPS today, he had two experts on who spoke about the misinformation campaigns currently being waged by China, Russia and Iran against the US and the 2020 election.  They play on people’s emotions to polarize us. And people keep falling for the lies.

Look we are polarized enough. We need to find compromise and learn to speak to each other again.  STOP believing all you see on Facebook. Many of the memes are made by people telling lies.  I have seen this coming from both sides of the political world as well as outside sources.

If you post something that is not true and I see it.  I will find the articles that refute.  Please take the fake post down and report it. 

Do not let social media be your only news source.  Try the Flip Side. This daily news email takes one topic a day and provides content from the conservative and liberal sides.  You see all the comments.  And you see what people are really say.   Here is a link to sign up for it:  https://theflipside.io?rh_ref=4a061f4d 

Do not just mindlessly repost something without first reading it or checking it or making sure it is the truth.  I don’t care if you are way right or way left, both sides are driving me crazy with ridiculous memes and posts.

Some of my friends might begin to get annoyed with me.  I am not sorry.  If you are posting misinformation, I am going to comment with the truth and with another article to support my claim.  If we all started doing this. If we all checked what we posted before we posted it, maybe the world can be a bit happier.   It is obvious to me that there are people who want to spread strife and discord.

Please do not become part of the problem.  Check your sources.  I do not care what political side you are on. Just post articles and memes that are true!

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