Extremists using 'codes' to evade detection online, royal commission hears

Extremists are using coded language and memes to evade detection when posting antisemitic content on social media, a royal commission has heard.

Far-right individuals have also adopted memes as a way to push "more palatable" antisemitism, which is less likely to be picked up by moderators.

Hannah Rose, an extremism researcher from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue gave evidence to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on its third day of hearings.

"We see that extremists use different codes, for example they'll change a letter in a word to a number to avoid content moderation," she testified.

"They'll use emojis, they'll use memes, so a lot of inferred … antisemitism.

"[It is] only necessarily identifiable to an individual who knows the context of that meme already and is able to interpret it in that way.

"And antisemitism is not always illegal, it's not always in violation of platform terms of service."

"Extremist actors are quite good at knowing what does and doesn't cross the line, and so they're able to just stay under that line of detection on a mainstream platform."

The October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas let "antisemitism out of the box", Ms Rose told the commission.

"Immediately after the [October 7] attack, we set out to analyse the volume of antisemitic content on YouTube videos about the conflict," she said.

"And we found a 51-fold increase in the volume of antisemitic content on those videos."

In 2025, she noted, there were several spikes in antisemitic content posted by Australian users.

"The 13th of June, 2025, was the day that Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and military bases, the start of that initial war between Israel and Iran," she said.

"And on the 22nd of June was when the US joined in."

A third spike came on September 10, 2025, when US conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.

"We saw an elevated volume of antisemitism on that day … [people] making antisemitic claims based on conspiracy theories that Israel had assassinated Charlie Kirk," Ms Rose said.

"This, to me, speaks to the relevance of international events to the Australian [context].

"[It] speaks to the importance of being able to operate globally in response to antisemitism and international cooperation with other states who are facing the same issues."

The Jewish Council of Australia's executive director Sarah Schwartz is expected to appear before the commission on Thursday.

Also expected to appear are eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt and representatives for multiple state police forces.

Elon Musk blamed for rise in anti-Jewish hate on X

Earlier on Wednesday, an online hate prevention charity partially blamed trillionaire Elon Musk for anti-Jewish hatred on social media platform X.

The platform has not responded to repeated requests to engage with the royal commission.

The Online Hate Prevention Institute's Andre Oboler said X was "generally difficult to work with".

"It's been quite a few years since we were able to have contact with them," he said.

Of the 1,700 posts on X flagged for hate speech or offensive content, just 24 per cent were removed, according to an analysis by the institute.

TikTok, in comparison, removed 64 per cent of the more than 400 videos reported, while Meta removed 54 per cent of the 950 Facebook posts reported to them.

The Online Hate Prevention Institute stopped having consistent communication with X at the same time as Mr Musk purchased the platform in 2022.

"[The purchase] led to about 80 per cent of trust and safety staff being fired almost immediately," he said.

"[There was also] a philosophical change where it went from a platform that was at least trying to improve safety, to a platform that said 'no we believe in absolute free speech' almost.

"A lot of people that had been causing problems were allowed back in and the environment just became more and more toxic."

Media and communications scholar Terry Flew gave evidence to the inquiry about a digital duty of care, being drafted by the federal government.

Letting platforms self-regulate, according to Professor Flew, ran the risk of having any rules simply being ignored.

"And there may be some capacity through a revised digital duty of care act to put some kind of legal teeth there," he said.