On the evening of Yom Kippur, 20 September 2026, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, a gunman carried out what police described as “a deliberate attack directed at members of the Jewish community”. The attack targeted the Sons of Jacob Synagogue and resulted in an exchange of gunfire between the assailant and a police officer stationed outside, with bullets passing through the synagogue’s windows. While none of the worshippers were injured, the officer, Constable Jeff Smith, was shot and hospitalised in a critical but stable condition. The assailant, Sean Ward, was shot by police and later died in hospital.

This report examines the online response to the attack across eight online platforms. It shows glorification of the attack, disappointment Jews weren’t killed, denial the attack was real, denial it was targeted at the Jewish community, and claims it was a false flag carried out by the Jewish community, Mossad, Israel, or Canadian intelligence. This pattern of celebration and denial follows what we have seen in response to other attacks on the Jewish community around the world. 

The responses advance the normalisation of antisemitism and antisemitic violent extremism. One narrative seeks to normalise the killing of Jews, and the public acceptance of violence targeting Jews. The other seeks to undermine empathy with the Jewish victims, eroding public and political will to confront antisemitism. 

We saw these narratives erasing Jewish victimhood in the pro-Hamas disinformation campaigns after the October 7 terrorist attack, and in Iranian disinformation following multiple Iranian sponsored attacks on Jewish targets around the world. While the Belleville attack did not come from the same source, it highlights how these narratives have been normalised in online culture, particularly when Jews are the target. 

The report also shows how some people immediately asserted the attacker was Muslim, using news of the attack to promote anti-Muslim hate. In another section it explores the link between the attack and the spread of Covid conspiracy theories.

This report highlights the urgent need for greater action on online antisemitism, mis/disinformation, and extremism. When people are attacked in a place of worship on a holy day, the response online should be empathy, unity, and support. Online content that seeks to subvert that response, that justifies, excuses, or denies the violence undermines religious freedom, liberal democratic values, and society itself.

Other material

See the preliminary report into this incident

See the Jerusalem Post’s reporting on the preliminary report

The post Belleville Synagogue Shooting Report first appeared on Online Hate Prevention Institute.

OHPI spoke to The Jerusalem Post, showing that the false flag and conspiracy narratives mirror propaganda strategies observed after previous attacks.

OHPI warned that “this is not just an attack on the Jewish community, it is an attack on religious freedom and on the values Canada and Australia hold dear.”

‘Allowing such content on social media is a choice’

Andre Oboler, CEO of OHPI, condemned the responses to the attack in a statement to the Post:

“Allowing such content on social media is a choice. In January 2025, Meta made the choice to allow more of it when they turned off their automated filters for hate speech. X has been a problem since Musk took it over. It’s time governments stepped up and regulated the platforms to stop hate and toxicity from spreading in society”

Read the full article, with further statements from OHPI.

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A police officer, Constable Jeff Smith, was “providing a proactive presence in an area of the synagogue” and encountered a man armed with a shotgun. The man began shooting at the officer after he attempt to apprehend him. The officer returned fire. According to the President of the Synagogue, Norm Weddum, in an interview with CBC, the officer was in an unmarked car in the synagogue’s parking lot at the side of the building and the attacker was approaching the synagogue. The bullet holes in the synagogue windows support this. Police have not confirmed the synagogue was the target and have so far released very little information as the investigation continues.

Constable Jeff Smith was shot. The gunman, later identified by police as 29-year-old Sean Ward of Quinte West, was also shot. Constable Smith is in hospital in a critical but stable condition. Ward, who CBC have reported is a former member of the Canadian Military, is in hospital with life-threatening injuries. While the synagogue’s windows were pierced by flying bullets, no one inside was injured.

Online responses to the attack included posts supportive of violence targeting the Jewish community and regretting the lack of casualties among the Jewish worshippers.

4Chan

On 4chan’s Politically Incorrect forum /pol/ (a source of radicalisation in the 2019 Halle attack) posters self-identifying as Americans described the Belleville attack as “beautiful” and that the news “made my day”. Another self-identified American poster complained, “No Jews were killed or even injured” and suggested this meant it was a Jewish scheme. Another claimed it was a false flag, blaming Israel’s intelligence service Mossad for the attack.

X (Twitter)

On X, a user self identifying as Canadian called it a false flag, blaming Israel for the attack. Another X user, likely from the UK, called the attacker “based”, a term signifying approval and presenting the attacker as courageous, and which we previously saw used on /pol/ after the shooting of a synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019. Such glorification of extremists can lead to copycat attacks. Another user claimed Jews had faked the attack – a trend we saw after attacks on Jewish (Hatzolah) ambulances in London, attacks on synagogues in Melbourne, Australia, and the Bondi Beach attack.

Another X user claimed the attack was fake, this time using the language of “Zionists” as code for Jews. They also referenced the Dural Caravan plot in Australia as evidence that attacks on Jews weren’t real. The Dural Caravan plot was found by police to be a fabricated terrorism plot concocted by criminals, who sought to trade information on it for reduced sentences. The fear it caused in the Jewish community was quite real and police references to it as a “hoax” have had an unfortunate effect, feeding conspiracy theories.

Another post on X described it as an “obvious Zionist psyop”, again blaming Jews for an attack on synagogue using coded language and leaning into antisemitic conspiracy theories.

On Facebook there is again a claim hate crimes are faked. Another user suggests that Canada’s own intelligence service might be behind it, pushing the same form of conspiracy theory that lead to the claim 9/11 was an inside job by the CIA. A pro-Palestinian account claim Israel must be behind it, trying to falsely keep antisemitism high to ensure support. Another simply claimed Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, was behind it. These are the same claims seen after attacks on Jewish targeted in Australia (Bondi Beach and Melbourne synagogues) and London. They are particularly strong following attacks instigated by Iran, and it is likely this conspiracy narrative is part of an Iranian information warfare strategy, or echoed by those who have seen that material.

On YouTube a news report on the incident was met with the comment “The painter was right”, a reference to Hitler which glorifies the Holocaust and efforts to kill Jews. Another News report on the attack received the comment “False flag”. A third, the comment “Inside job” – blaming the Jewish community itself. A fourth news video received comments claiming it was a psyop and a false flag.

News video:

Comment on this video:

The second video:

The comment on this video:

The third news video:

And the comment on it:

The fourth video:

The comment on it:

These examples are just a fraction of the content the Online Hate Prevention Institute has collected since the attack. This is not just an attack on the Jewish community, it is an attack on religious freedom and on the values Canada, and Australia, hold dear.

The content we have documented, which seeks to celebrate the attack, glorify efforts to murder of Jews, deny that attacks on Jews are real, and blame the victims, are all part of a growing narrative positioning Jews as collectively responsible for the vilification and violence inflicted upon them.

This narrative is fed and exacerbated by social media systems that thrive on conflict and conspiracy theories, and leveraged by foreign actors. Rather than the unity and empathy we might expect, we have hate, radicalisation, and violent extremism.

Governments cannot afford to separate efforts to protect physical safety from efforts to combat growing online threats.

The post Extremism in Canada on Yom Kippur first appeared on Online Hate Prevention Institute.

Following Melon Musk’s acquisition and rebranding of Twitter to ‘X’ in October of 2022, policies governing safety and conduct were changed or discarded, and the number of engineers tasked specifically with “trust and safety issues” was reduced from 279 at the time of Musk’s acquisition to 55 in May 2023. 

Australia’s eSafety office issued a legal notice to X in June of 2023 under the Online Safety Act that compelled the company to provide information about how it was addressing online hate across its platform in the period 24 January 2022 to 31 May 2023 inclusive. In a report prepared by the eSafety Office based on the results of their inquiry, X disclosed that it had reinstated 6,103 Australian accounts that had previously been banned from the platform. 194 of these accounts had been initially suspended/banned for hateful conduct violations. Our CEO Dr Andre Oboler raised this issue directly with the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion during his second testimony: 

Since his acquisition, Mr Musk has advanced a claim that X is a platform for ‘free speech’, and it is in accordance with this logic that accounts previously suspended for hateful conduct have been reinstated. This position has attracted critique, including during the aforementioned Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, where it was argued that X’s policies represented a “double standard”. Namely, the rationale invoked by X to justify its protection of potentially harmful content, a purported desire to create an environment that permits unfettered free speech, is contradicted by the platform’s concomitant failure to enforce the standards of behaviour necessary for any such environment to emerge. 

Although some figures who were reinstated under Mr Musk, such as the neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, have subsequently been banned again, an array of individuals known for promoting hate with considerable reach and influence have had their accounts restored and remain on the platform at the time of writing. The following are a small sample of prominent social media personalities that were exiled from Twitter but were, in effect, exonerated by and welcomed back to X.

Andrew Tate: Misogyny

The notorious misogynist Andrew Tate was banned from Twitter in 2017 shortly after he asserted that women “bear some responsibility” for being victims of rape. Tate’s account was reactivated on or around 18 November 2022. Mr Tate resumed making regular misogynistic proclamations almost immediately. Amongst a wide range of harmful generalisations and stereotypes, Mr Tate’s rhetoric also involves the dehumanisation of women. Mr Tate espouses a view of gendered power dynamics in which women exist in a fundamentally and inalienably parasitical relationship with men. According to Mr Tate, women compensate for various physical, cognitive and psychosocial impairments by engaging in exploitative relationships with men that are based on exchanges of sexual gratification and reproduction for power and wealth [see below].

In addition to being offensive, Mr Tate’s production and distribution of misogynistic content has visibly contributed to the normalisation of misogyny as well as an increase in the frequency of specifically misogynistic instances of anti-social behaviour. Moreover, Mr Tate’s posts routinely violate X’s rules and policies. Of particular note is the manner in which Mr Tate’s comments about women on X violate the subcategory of ‘dehumanization’ as it is articulated within X’s Hateful Conduct policy [see below].

Mr Tate’s remarks about women consistently invoke (albeit more or less directly) his stated belief that women are essentially and categorically interchangeable with female reproductive functions. Such remarks are demeaning and degrading, but they also necessarily involve the denial of agency, and in so doing, they are inescapably dehumanising. 

At the time of writing, Mr Tate has 10.8 million followers on X.

Laura Loomer: Islamophobia

Laura Loomer, a self-proclaimed Islamophobe and white-nationalist, was banned from Twitter in 2018 following her Islamophobic abuse of a United States congresswoman. On 8 December 2022, Loomer’s account was reinstated on X. Most recently, Ms Loomer’s anti-Iranian rhetoric has attracted the attention of the Iranian regime, who have begun posting AI-generated videos depicting Loomer as a Lego Minifigure. 

As recently as March 2026, Ms Loomer made a post on X with a video taken by a passenger aboard a flight from Nashville to Florida that was diverted to Atlanta following reports by passengers of a bomb threat [see below]. In her post on X, Ms Loomer asserts that an “Arabic looking Muslim passenger onboard the plane threatened to blow the plane up with a bomb”. Ms Loomer claims that there was no media coverage of the incident, and declares that all Muslims should be deported from the United States of America. Although the flight was diverted and a SWAT team did indeed take a passenger into custody, this proved to be the result of xenophobic assumptions on the part of the passengers rather than a thwarted instance of Islamic extremism as it was portrayed by Ms Loomer.

X users contributed context via the community notes function to Ms Loomer’s post, explaining that the suspect was speaking a foreign language, and that he was in possession of some kind of countdown on his phone [see below]. It was later realised that this was simply a timer for Ramadan prayers. 

Available information indicates that the individual never threatened anyone, and the bomb threat was introduced into the narrative as a result of xenophobic stereotypes. Although no charges were filed and the suspect was cleared by the state police as well as the FBI, Ms Loomer left the post on X unedited.

The post is demonstrative of Ms Loomer’s enduring commitment to inciting hostility towards Muslims, as well as a lack of concern for the threats presented by mis and disinformation. This type of content violates X’s current Hateful Conduct Policy, which includes a dedicated subsection for “Incitement” [see below].

At the time of writing, Ms Loomer has 1.9 million followers on X.

E. Michael Jones: Antisemitism

After being suspended from all mainstream social media platforms (including Twitter) in 2018 for his production and distribution of antisemitic propaganda, E. Michael Jones’ account was restored on 23 November 2022. One of the first public remarks made by Mr Jones following his reinstatement to X was an antisemitic ‘prayer’ for God to “break the yoke of Jewish tyranny…” [see below].

Mr Jones has maintained an antisemitic publication, Culture Wars, since 1996 (previously Fidelity, which he founded in 1981), and has espoused an exceptionally broad range of antisemitic tropes in his writing and public speaking appearances. Mr Jones’ antisemitic commentary is often couched in his ideas of Catholicism, both as a religion and an institution, against which he claims Judaism exists in hostile opposition. Below is a recent example of the type of content posted to X by Mr Jones, which in this case is in the form of Holocaust denial. Having previously held the view that the Holocaust was a “justified response to Jewish behaviour”, Mr Jones’ ideas have since evolved into Holocaust denial. 

In the above example, Mr Jones’ antisemitism is reinforced by and enmeshed with his Holocaust denial via his conspiratorial claims of “Jewish privilege” and the “Holocaust narrative”. Mr Karp refers to a lampshade that was made from the skin of Buchenwald concentration camp prisoners. The lampshade was one of a number of artifacts made out of human remains at Buchenwald, and it has become symbolic of the extreme brutality faced by victims of the Holocaust. Forensic testing has conclusively proven that the lampshade is indeed made of human skin, but Holocaust-deniers like Mr Jones nevertheless advance various pseudo-academic claims about such artifacts in their efforts to challenge the veracity of Nazi genocide.

Posting material of this kind very clearly violates, at least, the following element of X’s current Abuse and Harassment policy that specifically prohibits Holocaust denial [see below].

At the time of writing, Mr Jones has 133,500 followers on X.

Dr Jordan Peterson: Amplification

Dr Jordan Peterson, in accordance with the hateful conduct policy of the time, was banned from Twitter in June 2022 after he posted transphobic abuse. On 18 November 2022, Mr Musk personally announced Dr Peterson’s X account would be reinstated. Leveraging the perceived weight of his academic credentials, Dr Peterson’s contributions to social media are shot through with climate-denial, transphobia, misogyny, and a peculiar brand of pseudu-intellectualism. Notably, Dr Peterson has continued to post transphobic remarks to X of a very similar kind to those for which he was previously banned. Instead of targeting and abusing individuals, Dr Peterson now regularly targets transgendered people more broadly [see below].

In the above example, Dr Peterson first denies the gender identity of trans women, but then proceeds to pathologise them as ‘autogynephilic’, and then condemns them as “men of the worst sort”. Dr Peterson’s remarks, in this instance, are directed at Admiral Rachel Levine, the first openly transgendered four-star commissioned officer in any of the United States uniformed services. Although these remarks meet the general criteria of ‘hateful conduct’ as well as ‘abuse and harassment’ as they are described in X’s policies, the subsection that appears to be intended to protect transgendered people from abuse offers no protections from Dr Peterson’s comments [see below]. 

Dr Peterson’s divisive, hateful and erroneous commentary presents a myriad of risks to the public sphere, and the way in which his relationship with Melon Musk has allowed him to bypass legitimate social sanctions is demonstrative of additional hazards. In the below screenshot of a post on X, Dr Peterson expresses his gratitude to Mr Musk for posting a portion of an interview in which Dr Peterson denies (among other things) the existence of patriarchy in Western societies. Notably, Mr Musk posted this video from his personal X account, and endorsed it as “true”, thus imparting artificial credibility, and dramatically increasing the public’s exposure, to Dr Peterson’s remarks. This interaction demonstrates that the reactivation of banned accounts on X can be leveraged by Mr Musk to manipulate public discourse on X and, potentially, to distort public opinion.

At the time of writing, Dr Peterson has 6.1 million X followers.

Concluding Remarks

The examples discussed here clearly demonstrate that a range of hateful behaviours that were considered unacceptable and prohibited by Twitter are tolerated by what has now become X. Moreover, X’s policies that prohibit hateful and abusive conduct are, at most, only selectively enforced, and they therefore do not represent a genuine framework for behavioural norms and expectations on X. Individuals, such as those examined here, have now had years to probe for a boundary, and they have found that, in practice, there are none. As a result, X is now an environment in which anti-social and harmful behaviour proliferates freely.

Recent events, such as the Royal Commission as well as other incidents involving regulatory bodies from around the world have demonstrated a clear willingness on the part of X to ignore and resist practically any attempt to influence the platform’s operations. As a privately owned entity, traditional mechanisms used for enforcing compliance with international standards, such as fines, do not have the same implications for X Corp as they previously did with Twitter (which was a publicly traded company). This presents significant challenges that will need to be overcome if an intervention is to be successful. Although possible, events to date appear to indicate that unless a powerful motivating factor is introduced, reform on X remains unlikely.

Despite Mr Musk’s proclamations of being a “free speech absolutist”, X’s re-activation of banned accounts went well beyond the ostensibly commendable objective of expanding participation by virtue of eliminating exclusion. Mr Musk’s reactivation of previously banned accounts was a significant instance of top-down intervention in the public sphere that necessarily changed the distribution of sociopolitical perspectives represented on the platform. These consequences have been compounded further still by Mr Musk’s support for specific socio-political ideas, attitudes and beliefs, which has served only to further distort public opinion. Moreover, Musk’s personal endorsement of hateful or otherwise problematic socio-political discourses on X serves to amplify their reach and influence. 

In any event, and setting aside valid questions about what Mr Musk is entitled to do with his property, the most fundamental problems raised by X are as a symptom rather than a disease. Given the same opportunities and affordances as Mr Musk, it stands to reason that similar if not identical outcomes would eventuate on any other social media platform if it were to implement the same conditions as X. Although it is playing an increasingly significant role in the production and consumption of misogyny, xenophobia, bigotry and prejudice, X in and of itself cannot explain the appeal of these discourses. 

That said, one would still hope that most people would be inclined to agree that the kinds of posts authored by the likes of Mr Tate, Ms Loomer, Mr Jones and Dr Peterson inflict significant harm and offer little, if any, utility or value. Deactivating at least some of the accounts that were reinstated under Mr Musk is not a curative remedy for antisocial behaviour, but it still promises better outcomes than doing nothing.

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The post “Free Speech” Selectively Enforced on X first appeared on Online Hate Prevention Institute.

Article: https://www.australianjewishnews.com/moving-forward-together/amp/

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The hybrid event was attended by 70 people. It involved a keynote from our CEO, Dr Andre Oboler, followed by a panel discussion in which he was joined by Iman Atta OBE (Director of Tell MAMA), and Prof Ali Hessami (IEEE Society for the Social Implication of Technology Chapter Chair for UK and Ireland). Q&A with the panel and audience followed.

The event examined antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate, and online misogyny and the implications for national security as hostile actors promote hate to weaken democracies. Dr Oboler’s presentation includes a look at data from three of OHPI’s reports:

• Online Antisemitism After October 7
• Online Anti-Muslim Hate and Racism Against Palestinians and Arabs: October 2023 – February 2024
• Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women

The event took place in the stunning National Liberal Club, hosted by the Defence & Security Circle chaired by Noel Hadjimichael FRSA, who also served as our very capable MC for the evening.

The post London: Defeating Online Hate first appeared on Online Hate Prevention Institute.

“The women detailed the abuse they received in a report released on Wednesday, while the Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) was also commissioned to write a report on their experience.

The report found the targeted abuse was fuelled by misogyny and disinformation that tech platforms were unwilling or unable to stop.”

Patrick Scolyer-Gray, author of the OHPI report, told supporters gathered at Australia’s Parliament House on Wednesday that the case of Collective Shout was internationally significant.

“Platform moderation systems proved inadequate, disinformation spread faster than corrections, abusive material remained online long enough to create the appearance of public consensus.”

The OHPI report made 47 recommendations, the first being that harmful and sexist content specific to women should be identified immediately.

Read the ABC article here.

Read the OHPI report, “Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women”, here.

The post Threats of rape, murder and deepfake porn used against women who challenged abusive video games first appeared on Online Hate Prevention Institute.

Listen to the program here. (4m20s)

Read the OHPI report, “Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women”, here.

The post High profile women threatened by online abuse first appeared on Online Hate Prevention Institute.

“The report, from the Online Hate Prevention Institute, details a year-long campaign of hate against Collective Shout, an all-female organisation that challenges the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls in media, advertising and popular culture. The group has suffered continual misogynistic online abuse, threats and misinformation since 2025.

The report suggests that the structures supposed to protect people online from this type of organised, anonymous, global campaign, including police, the eSafety Commission, social platforms and other gatekeepers, are inadequate.”

Read the ICDA article.

Read the OHPI report, “Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women”, here.

The post New report warns authorities not equipped to deal with coordinated online hate first appeared on Online Hate Prevention Institute.

This report examines the sustained campaign of hostility, harassment and harm directed at Collective Shout during 2025-26 following its advocacy to remove video games depicting rape, incest, sexual torture and child sexual abuse material from the digital distribution platforms Steam and Itch.io. The investigation finds that the backlash extended far beyond a policy dispute. Instead, it constituted a large-scale, multi-vector, coordinated campaign of abuse conducted across multiple online environments and characterised by misogyny, disinformation and harassment and attempts to undermine the organisation’s staff and operational capacity.

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