Upstanders: How Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor of CyberWell Is Standing Up Against Antisemitism, Racism, Bigotry, and Hate
Act quickly — even small interventions go a long way. Even if you don’t feel like being a hero at the moment or are scared to call attention to yourself, any small intervention to ask a potential victim if they are okay, acknowledge vocally that you see what’s going, encourage others to witness what is happening with you or going to get help from an ally or authority figure — all of these active steps interrupt the cycle of harassment, bullying, racism or victimization and generate accountability, take the momentum out the escalating situation and allow the person being targeted to get clarity, support and, hopefully, to get out of the situation.
An upstander is the opposite of a bystander. A bystander is someone who stands by while others are being bullied, maligned, or mistreated. An upstander is someone who stands up to protect and advocate for the victim. We are sadly seeing a surge of hate, both online and in the real world. Many vulnerable minorities feel threatened and under attack. What measures are individuals, communities, and organizations taking to stand up against Antisemitism, Racism, Bigotry, and Hate? In this interview series, we are talking to activists, community leaders, and individuals who are Upstanders against hate, to share what they are doing and to inspire others to do the same. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, the founder and executive director of CyberWell.
CyberWell is an innovative tech nonprofit focused on monitoring and combatting the spread of antisemitism on social media, reporting it to platform moderators based on the platform’s community standards guidelines it violates.
Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor is the founder and executive director of CyberWell, an international nonprofit organization focused on combatting the growing wave of online antisemitism and Jew hatred being spread through social media. The organization uniquely works with leading social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to identify and remove antisemitic content.
Cohen Montemayor founded CyberWell in October 2021 by creating the world’s first open database of antisemitic social media posts. As an expert in how social media platforms work, she has become a trusted partner to help them identify hate speech and extremism. Her expertise extends to hate crime reporting and advocating for legislation to ban this type of content. Employing cutting-edge methodologies and technologies encompassing big data management, machine learning and lexicon development, she has spearheaded numerous open-source intelligence research projects.
In addition to the most popular social media platforms themselves, she has provided analysis and consulting services to the Institute of National Security Studies, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and the Jewish Agency.
Prior to launching CyberWell, she worked in the web intelligence sector, serving most recently as an executive at Argyle Consulting Group, in Tel Aviv. She previously held positions including as a legal consultant at The White Bay Group and began her career at Israel’s third largest law firm, Arnon, Tadmor-Levy.
She received dual bachelor’s degrees in law and government affairs from Reichman University (IDC Herzliya) and was admitted into Israel’s Bar in 2019.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up and why you started CyberWell?
I am the eldest daughter of two parents who experienced immense challenges in their life, including being violently targeted for being Jews. My father is a refusenik from the former Soviet Union. Refusenikim were Soviet Jews who refused to refute their Judaism and connection to the land of Israel and were subsequently punished, jailed, blacklisted and denied from realizing self-determination by being barred from immigrating to Israel. Once my father and his family were liberated from the Soviet Union in 1976 through the actions and help of the British Jewish community, they were involved in advocating for the release and right to immigrate for other Soviet Jews. My mother was born in Kibbutz Nachson, Israel, in the 1950s to two socialist immigrants from the Zionist Shomer HaTzair movement, but was raised in East New York. When my mother was growing up in New York she was one of the only Jews and white-presenting kids in her neighborhood and was regularly beat up and bullied for being Jewish and “white”.
I grew up in the Washington D.C. suburb of Rockville, Maryland. My father worked at a prominent think tank and my mother worked in bio-tech. Our home was loud, warm, very political and pro-Israel. Most of our family was in Israel — my grandparents, my cousins, etc. We would visit our family in Israel as much as we could, flying every two years or so. My parents were always involved in supporting Israel in some way or another. My mother launched the Books4Israel project with her late sister, which focused on bringing English books to underserved schools in Israel from every sector, in addition to raising funds for Magen David Adom ambulances.
While I started out in public schools, from middle school and onward I was educated in an orthodox Jewish day school, even though we were not strictly observant at home. For my parents, who were raised by atheist socialists or in the Soviet Union, where religious practice was strictly prohibited, I think they viewed an education in Jewish day school as an opportunity for my brother and I to form a strong sense of identity. They were spot on.
Aside from my proud Jewish identity and my own love of Israel that I developed naturally when visiting family during the summer, I was inspired by the Israeli families and educational staff that I had the opportunity to interact with at my day school. These were emissaries that inspired me to dream of what it would be like to live in Israel, to give back to the growing communities there, to participate in a young and budding democracy and raise my own family there. The Israeli staff and their families embodied an optimism and positivity that I assessed came from living in the Jewish homeland after a long history of Jews being hunted, destroyed and subjected to mass genocide through the centuries, which I also learned about at length during my education in day school. The Israeli state seemed like the ultimate affirmation of Jewish life surviving and thriving.
I moved to Israel two weeks after finishing high school to join the Israeli Defense Forces as a Lone Soldier (a special status for IDF soldier who don’t live with their families). I served for two years as an Infantry Instructor and was honorably discharged.
With my father’s encouragement, I chose to study a double major in Law and Political Science at Reichman University in Israel. I studied in Hebrew, not my native language, which was incredibly tough, but I was able to graduate magna cum laude. During my college years I was very active in student life, including through the Student Union, where I initiated and led a process to improve and protect the academic rights and extended times for students whose first language wasn’t Hebrew, including Arab students and immigrants to Israel. I am proud to say that today Reichman University still offers the best conditions and academic support for students who don’t speak Hebrew as a first language, thanks to my initiative.
After a couple of years working as an articled clerk and first year associate in the legal field with a focus in hi-tech, corporate and finance law, I didn’t feel as if I was making as much of a social impact as I imagined when I first moved to Israel. With the help of a friend in the business intelligence field, I found myself pivoting into open-source and business intelligence. My background as an American with a well-established education about Judaism and Jewish history shaped the nature of the projects that were assigned to me and, as a project manager, I started leading large-scale research projects and app design initiatives with an expertise in extremist movements in the United States, hate crime reporting, antisemitism and online hate speech.
What I noticed was a clear migration of hard-core antisemitic hate and conspiracy theories from the darker or greyer corners of the internet (hate channels) to mainstream every day social media platforms. I could not help but be reminded of the hostile climate against Jews in Europe before the Holocaust. Antisemitism — hatred and hostility towards Jews — was popularized first as a concept by traditional media sources. The Holocaust could not have happened without the popularization of this idea. Now, social media platforms were disseminating the same Jew-hatred with algorithmically empowered machines for billions of people.
I was deeply worried, but as lawyer, I looked to the rules on the books — the policies of the platforms themselves — for clarity. When I did, I saw a vehicle by which to drive meaningful and scalable change. I thought, if the latest technology, AI and open-source intelligence techniques were combined with digital policy compliance, we could create a specialized solution meant to empower platforms to address antisemitism in the digital era. That’s how CyberWell was born — the first ever open database to monitor online antisemitism through the lens of digital policy compliance was born.
Can you share a personal story of how you experienced or encountered antisemitism, racism, bigotry, or hate? How did that experience shape your perception and actions moving forward?
The earliest memory I have of personally encountering racism was being called “white trash” in elementary school. I was one of the few Jews in the school and, very aware of my “otherness”, didn’t self-identify as white. In my mind, at the time, “white” meant White Anglo-Saxon Protestant who went to church and celebrated Christmas — which I did not, a fact that was always met with weird looks from white classmates. I wasn’t perceived as “white” by white kids. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of my friends at the time were Black. Being called “white trash” by Black classmates was deeply confusing. Without getting too much into the race politics of it all, especially because back in the 90’s these issues were spoken about differently and I was a child, it was the first time I remember being called out with resentment about the way I looked. In a different vein, I also remember feeling similarly angry, frustrated and confused when I was told that I should behave differently or sit differently because “I was a lady.” “What does that have to do with anything?” I would think.
Following my time in public school, when I was educated in a bit of a bubble in a Jewish day school, I did not encounter full-fledged personalized antisemitism until I was older. Personalized antisemitism met me at bars, on Tinder dates and, perhaps saddest of all, during electronic dance music festivals that are supposed to be places of tolerance, unity and respect. Antisemitism in this arena has become particularly painful for me after the Nova Music Festival massacre on October 7.
In 2014, during Tomorrowland, a massive electronic music festival in Belgium, I danced and walked around with the Israeli flag after serving in Reserve Duty for two and a half weeks during Operation Protective Edge. It was a complicated time, but I was happy to be there. My friend and I were repeatedly hounded, aggressively physically confronted and called “baby killers”. One woman came up to me and said, “Aren’t you ashamed? Don’t you think you shouldn’t be waving that flag with everything going on?” I looked at her directly and calmly asked, “Do you think as a Jew, I have a right to a state?” She thought about it and replied, “No.” “Then, you are an antisemite and we don’t have anything to talk about,” I replied and continued to focus on David Guetta. The same evening, as we were walking with friends we made at the festival from one side of the camping area to the other, German festival goers screamed out at us, “Juden! Juden! Juden-rat! Raus” Jewish rats get out of here — and then laughed as if it was a big joke. It was a harsh reminder of the history of Europe during World War II and how quickly it is becoming trivialized as it fades from recent memory.
I recently returned from another music festival in Amsterdam where huge Dutch security guards took away an Israeli flag from my hands. When the owner of the flag tried to protest, the security guard choked him and dragged him out of the party. As is typical with electronic music festivals, there were flags there from all over the world — including the Ukrainian and Palestinian flag. No one accosted them or confronted them, much less tried to take away their flag. Thankfully, in the latter story, I reached out to the management of the production after the traumatic event, who were receptive and apologetic. I am now working with management to find the party-goer so that an apology and refund for tickets can be issued.
All of these personal confrontations I have had with antisemitism do not even cover the regular amount of antisemitism that I, like so many other Jews on social media, experience online in direct messages and in the comments section. Today, online spaces are where Jews are most likely to be the target of antisemitism.
At this point in my life, I have been confronted with antisemitism, both online and offline, in very physical ways multiple times (some of the incidents I outlined above). I think I have processed these experiences in the larger context of my education and knowledge about Jewish history, the fact that Jews have been persecuted and targeted for centuries in different countries, and the oppression and bigotry that my parents and grandparents experienced in their respective upbringings. Knowing that this is an unfortunate theme of hatred and hostility that Jews routinely face and that my loved ones faced, makes the sting of the incidents feel a little less personal, in retrospect. Meaning, when these incidents happened to me, it was always clear to me — we are all in this together. The current rise in Jew-hatred that targets my friends and family only unites us more as a group and makes the importance of Jewish esteem, self-determination and strength ever more important. This is what has ultimately motivated my actions moving forward–my work against hatred, racism and antisemitism is in the name of others, of a larger collective memory, a group that I am proud to be part of. Serving them and their memory makes it easier for me to stand up against hate.
Today, because of my lived experience and professional work, I have also developed a unique ability to distinguish between clear hostility against Jews versus bias rooted in ignorance. However, I think that everyday people on the receiving end of hatred and bigotry probably experience this as a wholly isolating and devastating experience, regardless of its root cause. As I continue to lead CyberWell’s work in combatting online antisemitism, and learning more about racism, discrimination and hate, my understanding of bigotry continues to evolve.
Can you describe how you or your organization is helping to stand up against hate? What inspired you to take up this cause?
After a couple of years working as an articled clerk and first year associate in the legal field with a specialty in hi-tech, corporate and finance law, I didn’t feel as if I was making as much of a social impact as I imagined when I first moved to Israel. With the help of a friend in the business intelligence field, I found myself pivoting into open-source and business intelligence. My background as an American with a well-established education about Judaism and Jewish history shaped the nature of the projects that were assigned to me and, as a project manager, I started leading large-scale research and app proposal projects with an expertise in extremist movement in the United States, hate crime reporting, antisemitism and online hate speech.
What I noticed was a clear migration of hard-core antisemitic hate and conspiracy theories from the darker or greyer corners of the internet (hate channels) to mainstream every day social media platforms. I could not help but be reminded of the hostile climate against Jews in Europe before the Holocaust. Antisemitism — hatred and hostility towards Jews — was popularized first as a concept by traditional media sources. The Holocaust could not have happened without the popularization of this idea. Now, social media platforms were disseminating the same Jew-hatred with algorithmically empowered machines for billions of people.
I was deeply worried, but as lawyer, looked to the rules on the books, the policies of the platforms themselves, for clarity. When I did, I saw a vehicle by which to drive meaningful and scalable change. I thought, if the latest technology, AI and open-source intelligence techniques were combined with digital policy compliance, we could create a specialized solution meant to empower digital platforms to address antisemitism in the digital era. That’s how CyberWell was born — the first ever open database to monitor online antisemitism through the lens of digital policy compliance.
Since launching as the first ever open database of online antisemitism in 2022, CyberWell has been onboarded as Trusted Partners of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) and TikTok. We share data and high-level compliance alerts with actionable recommendations rooted in the policies and community standards of the social media platforms themselves to help them remove antisemitic content at scale. What’s unique about CyberWell’s methodology is that all of the work that we do is transparent and available on our website or public database. This creates clarity and data-sharing ability so that this data can drive process and inform decisions on how to affectively address Jew-hatred. This work is vitally important as online antisemitism is the fastest growing and most prevalent form of Jew-hatred today. To complicate things more, antisemitism is one of the most nuanced forms of racism. This makes it particularly difficult to track and remove, which is why tech-based initiatives dedicated to generating implementable solutions for our most used apps are so important. The Jewish population is only 2.4% of the United States and less than 1% of the world population. It’s clear that social media platforms won’t hire in-house expertise to address the overwhelming hate targeting such a small minority group. But CyberWell is leveraging the opportunity that technology and compliance present to drive systematic change and impact on these digital platforms.
Could you share an inspiring story that demonstrates the impact your efforts have had on combatting the spread of antisemitism online?
Since October 7 alone, CyberWell’s high-level compliance alerts have been used by social media platforms in real-time to action or remove well over 50,000 pieces of antisemitic content. More importantly, as a Trusted Partner, we were able to actively guide social media platforms and content moderators on emergent surges in online antisemitism during an outpouring of hateful and violent content following the Hamas massacre. We have been actively consulted with to update policy to reflect modern forms of antisemitism, for example, how the term “Zionist” can be used as a codeword to promote Jew-hatred on Meta’s platforms, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Updating and actively shaping policy has a direct impact on the way that social media platforms with billions of users deal with antisemitic content, including what exposure and traction that content receives in recommendation algorithms.
In your opinion, why do you think there has been such a surge of antisemitism, racism, bigotry, & hate, recently?
I think the widespread use of unregulated social media platforms has a net negative effect on our societies psychologically and socially. This includes heightened political polarization, erosion in trust of once trusted institutions, and the rise of antisemitism, racism, bigotry, and hate. While more academic research needs to be done about the long-term psychological effects of regular social media use, there is increasing evidence to suggest that social media platforms are designed to suck our attention, destroy our self-worth (particularly for young teenagers), and make us increasingly impatient and intolerant of opinions and experiences of the perceived ‘other group’. Racism stems from the psychological perception of in-group, out-group that is exploited by widespread scapegoatism, conspiratory thinking and need for the in-group to feel superior. No group or political ideology is immune to it — but certainly social media platforms are incentivizing outrage content and platforming conspiracy theories which exacerbate these toxic social processes. I do believe that social media platforms are getting better and that, overall, there is more awareness and more resources in the industry being invested in Trust & Safety, digital hate speech policies and automated removal of bad content to stem this toxic effect. However, much more needs to be done and more strict regulation on transparency and the duty of social media platforms to intervene and stop the spread of harmful content needs to be legislated and enforced.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
There needs to be a concerted effort and demand to create comprehensive legislation that will allow the public to continue to enjoy the entertainment and creative expression outlet that social media provides, while effectively stemming the spread of its toxic effects. It is the duty of lawmakers to explore and exhaust all avenues of effective, implementable and scalable legislation to achieve this goal. However, the public must be aware that the big-tech lobby is one of the best funded in Washington, D.C. Moreover, social media provides politicians with a direct line of communication with a given voter base and they use it as a tool of communication and campaigning, often. Public and community pressure for clear comprehensive regulation on social media platforms as a priority would help spur action on the part of the politicians. The negative effects of widespread social media use affect all of us, most notably minority and marginalized communities. In addition to levels of online Jew-hatred being at record high rates, research indicates that there is a dipropionate “constant” use of social media platforms by minority communities and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. How is this disproportionate use in young Latinos and Blacks affecting their chances for success in education, their mental health, ability to concentrate and to create? These are questions that deserve answers and perhaps before the answers are clear, deserve intervention.
What are your “5 Things Everyone Can Do To Be An Upstander”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
A story that sums up most of my philosophy about being an upstander and five things everyone can do to be an upstander: The very public drunk hook up. Once, I was walking back from a Halloween party in New York with my husband and some friends. There was a couple on the street that was “getting busy” pretty publicly and graphically on the street. It appeared that the girl was very drunk. It was one of those situations where I could not tell if this interaction was consensual or if the girl was even aware of what was going on. I asked myself out loud, “This looks weird. Should I say something?” “You should definitely say something,” my husband encouraged. I awkwardly interrupted the couple and asked if she was alright and if she was okay with what was happening. She said that she was fine and thanks for asking. Then, they went right back to what they were doing. The reason I intervened was because I imagined if that was my friend or my cousin, I would probably check up on them to make sure they were okay with what was happening. I also thought, from experience, that if this girl was being assaulted, sometimes it takes a brief intervention to create space for more intervention, gain clarity or deescalate.
Thankfully, everything was fine, and we all went back to what we were doing or where we were going.
- Intervene for your fellow person as if you saw a distant relative being bullied, harassed or harmed. This comes from a basic Biblical concept of “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” (Leviticus 19:18) which has evolved into the modern saying, “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” Many people think of that in the affirmative of positive treatment and being polite, but it also means standing up for one another and offering each other basic protection and care much like you would a relative.
- The benefits for being an upstander almost always outweigh the risks. Worst case scenario — you get told it’s none of your business and to pipe down. Best case scenario — you save a life. In that scenario even if the girl or guy would tell me it was none of my business, so what? No harm done. Momentary awkwardness and embarrassment I can live with any day. Finding out that I was in a situation and could have prevented a catastrophe but didn’t? I couldn’t live with that.
- Need courage? Check if others are seeing what you are seeing and if they also feel uncomfortable with what’s going on. A big reason I intervened that night on the street was because my husband heard me wonder aloud to myself and actively encouraged me to intervene. I knew he was also going to be my back up if anything did get out of hand.
- Act quickly — even small interventions go a long way. Even if you don’t feel like being a hero at the moment or are scared to call attention to yourself, any small intervention to ask a potential victim if they are okay, acknowledge vocally that you see what’s going, encourage others to witness what is happening with you or going to get help from an ally or authority figure — all of these active steps interrupt the cycle of harassment, bullying, racism or victimization and generate accountability, take the momentum out the escalating situation and allow the person being targeted to get clarity, support and, hopefully, to get out of the situation.
- Be aware of other people who are less fortunate, less empowered or more marginalized around you.
In the aforementioned story, I was concerned about the fact that this woman seemed very drunk and was clearly less physically dominant than the man she was with.
In another unrelated instance I remember being at a conference and choosing to be an upstander by amplifying a more marginalized voice in place of my own. The time for questions after a panel session that was quickly running out. The last two people with their hands up for questions were myself and a female queer presenting person of color. When the moderator picked me as the last question for the session, I actively and purposefully yielded my time to the other person to ask a question. When the moderator tried to push back and say that, “it was fine” and I should go ahead and ask my question, I insisted on ceding my time to the other person. I was motivated to do this by the knowledge of studies that demonstrate that women are underrepresented in the boardrooms, and when present, may participate less in discussions compared to male counterparts. I am not a race or gender dynamics expert but could make an educated guess that this statistic probably extends to minority and marginalized LGBTQ+ groups. So, to ensure that the other person had a chance to ask their question, thereby ensuring that questions were coming from a more diverse group of people, I was happy to actively choose to cede my time and chance to ask a question to someone who may have been overlooked due to conscious or unconscious bias.
How do you handle the emotional toll that comes with being an Upstander?
For professional Upstanders or people who dedicate their life to activism and advocacy against injustice and racism, mental health is a paramount concern. I think its best practice that any organization fighting social ills, racism or injustice have some sort of wellness program in place. For anyone experiencing stress, burnout or mental trauma from being an Upstander in their own personal capacity, I strongly recommend finding community in work or school spaces with like-minded individuals for support and talking through your experiences. I personally am privileged enough to be in therapy, but am actively working on getting a wellness program in place for the rest of my team as well, as they have suffered a tremendous amount of trauma and stress, specifically in the weeks following the October 7 massacre, when they were exposed to an outpouring of some of the worst graphic content and violent antisemitism that we have ever seen online. CyberWell’s data revealed that there was an 86% increase in online antisemitism in the weeks following October 7, with a clear uptick in calls to violence against Jews and Israelis and viciously graphic content of Hamas’ massacre.
If you were in charge of the major social media companies, what would you do to address the hate on the platforms? Could you share specific strategies or policies that you believe would be effective in addressing hate on social media platforms?
Today, most social media platforms treat online hate speech or hate data under one general umbrella category. They have been hesitant to label specific types of hate targeting one particular group. As content moderation practices began to evolve, it was easier for the social media companies to partially address hate data in a one-size-fits-all manner rather than spend time and resources labelling hate targeting specific groups. However, this is a huge missed opportunity — especially considering the current opportunities that generative AI presents. If the platforms invested in labelling hate targeting specific groups, the algorithmic insights would allow for far more accurate flagging and removal of hate speech. At this point, even Meta’s Oversight Board has recommended that specific labelling as a best-practice for more effectively addressing specific types of content that violate policy. In addition to creating group-specific labelling on hate data for more effective removal, I think creating a collaborative confidential space or sandbox where expert hate researchers for specific groups could have access to datasets with the decisions made by human content moderators and/or automated flag-and-remove technologies would allow for more finite recommendations and tweaks made to the content moderation process, both technologically and by humans.
How would you answer someone who says: “Hate speech is permitted under the US Constitution. Why are you so worried about permitted, and legal speech?”
Freedom of speech does not equate to paid speech. The “speech” or content creation that people engage in on the social media platforms is paid speech –i.e. algorithmically enhanced speech for commercial purposes. Meaning, a private company is affording you the right to create content on its platform to make money from advertisers. That’s it. These same private companies have made independent decisions on what content is and is not allowed on their platforms. Initiatives like CyberWell are dedicated to making sure that these private companies are held to account for the promises that they made to their users — that they would not be targeted for their identity on the app and that the platform would not become algorithm and network enhanced hate machines.
Secondly, The U.S. Constitution enshrines freedom of speech, which in essence prevents the government from stifling, censoring or suppressing criticism and expression against the government, and even this protection is not absolute. Recently the House of Representatives’ decided to pass the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications, which would effectively force the sale of TikTok in the United States from its parent company, Byte Dance, which is Chinese owned, or TikTok would risk permanent shut down. In this case freedom of speech was balanced against another paramount concern, national security.
From my professional perspective, if Congress is concerned about the national security threats that social media platforms pose, they would do well to extend critical thinking and legislative reform to all social media platforms, including Meta, Google (YouTube) and X and chat platforms like Telegram. October 7 was the largest hijacking of social media platforms by a terror group, which then received immense support, narrative echoing and whitewashing from their apologists abroad through incessant repetition and dissemination of misinformation and disinformation that still goes on today (see CyberWell’s latest report on the online campaign denying the events of October 7). This highlighted the very real way which the vulnerabilities of social media platforms can and will be exploited in the future by terror groups. It should be a wake-up call to every Western democracy under threat of a terror attack. This bill should be the first step in a series of reforms meant to balance social media operations against national security concerns.
Are you optimistic that we can solve this problem in the United States? Can you please explain what you mean?
I am optimistic that, if the American public were acutely aware of the damage and toxicity that the current unbridled social media operations were creating, there would be immense pressure to legislate, regulate and reform current social media operations, including the way that hate speech is amplified on those apps.
There are a number of legal reforms that present frameworks by which to solve the social media accountability crisis in the United States. In addition to the European Union’s recently passed Digital Services Act, which can be looked to for guidance to consider the framework for how to reform ways social media platforms should operate in the United States, there have been multiple attempts to reform or repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which effectively is the loophole which has protected social media platforms from user-generated content that they host. This loophole is outdated and was passed before the roll-out of algorithmically enhanced social media platforms. Additional legal reforms that can help include the Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act, SAFE Tech Act and Kids Online Safety Act.
However, when it comes to effectively addressing hate speech and racism on these platforms, I believe genuine transparent partnerships between these private companies and tech-based non-profits with expertise in specific forms of racism and relevant academic staff is the solution to leveraging maximal improvement before waiting for the long-process of legislative reform to bear fruit.
I have been pleasantly surprised at the level of cooperation and openness that CyberWell typically receives as a Trusted Partner of both TikTok and Meta when it comes to improving content moderation practices and community standards or hate speech policies that are failing to address antisemitism. I am under the impression that no other non-profit took a data-sharing approach rooted in the policies of the platforms themselves — this really changes the conversation to be one of compliance and not naming and shaming as a strategy. I don’t believe in brushing problems under the rug, as may be apparent by some of my answers here. I am an open critic of how social media platforms are socially and psychologically affecting us en-masse. However, I also believe that most private companies are interested in reputation management and compliance. If hate experts are capable of meeting these companies where they are and trying to solve their problem, I think in general we will see a lot more scalable impact before the Section 230 gap is closed.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to become an Upstander but doesn’t know where to start?
I will borrow from the infamous national campaign to prevent terror attacks, “If you see something, say something.” If you are witnessing injustice, racism, bullying or harassment it is an opportunity to intervene and express your discomfort. By being authentic to your own discomfort in a situation of being forced to witness injustice you will inadvertently be supportive of the person being victimized and may make a significant impact for them in the moment. Even if people default to “staying out of it,” it’s rare that we see this type of behaviour and are left completely unbothered by it. Use your discomfort to your advantage — make something out of it for the benefit of others, make it your business and get involved, even if the best you can do at the time is ask others for help in intervening. Being an Upstander doesn’t mean having to be a hero, but it is an invitation to be vocal about the fact that you are witnessing something wrong and are willing to interrupt the cycle of victimization. Remember — no intervention is too small, and some action by an Upstander is better than none at all. In the worst case scenario you get told to butt out, in the best case scenario you save someone’s life. Typically, the benefits of intervening as an Upstander far outweigh the benefits of not getting involved.
In what ways can education be leveraged to combat antisemitism, racism, bigotry, and hate?
There is no more potent antidote to racism, bigotry, and hate than education. Specifically, education against hatred and racism should be built on the following pillars: tolerance, learning to acknowledge and celebrate differences between peoples through exposure and honest conversation, but perhaps most importantly, through the study of history — particularly where racism and bigotry became systematically legalized resulting in atrocities and widespread oppression. Today, roughly 30 states do not require public school education about the Holocaust, despite it being the largest and most well documented genocide in human history, and despite its importance in the U.S. involvement in World War II. The lessons of the climate, legal and social developments leading up to the Holocaust in Europe are particularly important to understand when a social ill like racism and bigotry is systematically enforced and where social Upstanding completely fails. When you ask the average German about why it is important to actively intervene against widespread hate speech, they will tell you that it is because of the direct effects that hate speech has when it is completely unchecked. Perhaps now more than before it is vital to highlight that the Nazis came to power in Third Reich Germany in a completely legal manner. Similarly, slavery was institutionalized in the United States and the British Empire in the past and is legally institutionalized in many parts of the Middle East today.
Education must also meet students where they are today, borrowing from and addressing where they are most likely to consume information, up to and including news — social media platforms. For example, of US adults who regularly use social media as a new source, 53% cite X as a regular source, while only 43% cite TikTok. However, TikTok has experienced the highest increase as a cited regular newsource when compared to any other platform — nearly doubling from its 22% cite rate in 2020. This, lined up with the fact that TikTok hosts the highest concentration of young social media users, should tell educators a lot. If teachers are aware that these platforms are being used as news sources by about half of the population, they have a duty to imbue their education against racism, bigotry and antisemitism within the mediums that people are using, in this case the social media platforms. This is another reason why I made CyberWell a publicly available platform. Because I want the vetted online antisemitism to inform the curriculum in practice against racism, hate and about the history of the Holocaust in the classroom.
Active learning and comparative study of different groups is crucial to successful melting pot or mosaic societies with people coming from multiple cultures and backgrounds. In this context it is also important to view people as exactly that, individuals, with a diversity of thought and life experience that may differ from the group, race, religion, gender that they are a part of.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“In this bright future, you can’t forget your past.” — Bob Marley
“Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die today.” –James Dean
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” — E.E. Cummings
“What I’m fighting for / Is worth far more than silver and gold / What I am fighting for / Is a chance to unite the past.” Matisyahu
“If I am not for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” — Rabbi Hillel
“Put your faith in God, he will make your heart strong and brave, and put your faith in God (again)” — Psalms 27:14
I am a person cares a lot about the impact that words have and, naturally, am a huge fan of meaningful quotes. Every morning I listen to an inspirational podcast called the Quote of the Day Show. I highly recommend it as a way to start off your mornings right. Above I shared some of my favorite life and spiritual quotes. But the quote that has impacted me most is the quote below from Michael Levin, the only American soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces who was killed during the Second Lebanon War with Hezbollah in 2006.
“You can’t fulfill your dreams unless you dare to risk it all.” — Michael Levin, of blessed memory.
When I was in high school watching the documentary of Michael’s short but impactful life, A Hero in Heaven, which chronicled his decision to leave the comfort of the suburbs of Philadelphia to join the IDF, moved me deeply and solidified my decision to move to Israel and join the Israeli Defense Forces. While Michael and his family made the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of Israel and the Jewish people, this guiding quote has inspired many other decisions in my life, including taking the leap to found CyberWell as a young CEO. This quote to me speaks not only to the power of following your dreams, but the personal commitment and faith you must muster if you want to follow through and make your dreams a reality. Since Michael was killed in action in 2006 by Hezbollah terrorists, many lone soldiers from the US have also been killed serving in the IDF and fighting terrorism. Approximately 20 lone soldiers were murdered by Hamas or killed in action since October 7. I feel their losses more personally than most, as my brother or I easily could have been one of them.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
In my line of work, I am lucky to meet and collaborate with some of my heroes. For example, I have had the privilege of meeting the US Special Envoy on Antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, several times. Some heroes and inspiring minds that I have yet to meet and would be delighted to share a meal with include Bari Weiss, Yuval Noah Harari, Reshma Saujani and Cathrine A. MacKinnon.
I read Bari Weiss’ How to Fight Antisemitism about a year after I made the decision to leave law and pivot into something more actionable against hate. I was working at an open-source intelligence and business intelligence boutique firm. At my firm, probably because of my American background, and on the heels of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting, I was leading a large scale research project focusing on exploring the failures of the hate crime reporting infrastructure and extremist movements in the United States. I thought the book was fabulous and would do well to be required reading in most high school curriculums. How to Fight Antisemitism was an updated text that informed and inspired my approach to fighting hate, racism and antisemitism. I have been inspired by the way that Bari Weiss’ authenticity and honest discourse has moved others to think independently and critically.
Yuval Noah Harari’s mind and understanding of human nature fascinates me. Recently, I was listening to his conversation with the Center for Humane Technology where he mused about the fact that, as a human race, we have yet to depict what it would be like to imagine a utopian future where AI and advanced robots actually served mankind and helped us move forward as a species to be more peaceful, thought-evoking and harmonious. I would love to meet Yuval and get a download of a critical intellectual roadmap for ethical tech philosophy.
I am a huge fan Reshma Saujani’s work on parental leave, gender equality and equity and girls’ education in STEM (through SheCodes). I not only align with her values and gender equality philosophy, as a young CEO in the non-profit space, I am sure I can learn so much from her!
Catharine A. MacKinnon, sometimes referred to the mother of radical feminism, challenged me through her writing and case law that I studied in law school to intellectually rethink my understanding of gender, sex-roles and the ultimate outcomes that the feminist movement should seek to attain. I have followed her work and listened to her lectures. I would be so curious and interested to have a conversation with her today and ask her about her views, if they have changed and how the feminist movement could be updated with new goals given the new technologies that exist today.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
All of CyberWell’s research and reports that we share with the social media platforms are available at www.cyberwell.org/reports. All of the antisemitic data that we vet and flag to social media platforms is also open to the public at app.cyberwell.org . This is the first ever open public database online antisemitic content that features an interactive dataset tracking what content is online or offline, how each social media platform is contributing to the state of online antisemitism in a given month and what forms of antisemitism are trending. We encourage people to visit the public database and report the live examples of antisemitism with us using their own social media accounts. Soon we will be launching the ability for others to also report online antisemitism to us so that we can include as part of our research and escalation process to the platforms that we work with. Additionally, we are available on all social media platforms, (even Post and Spoutible!), where we share regular updates and insights about online Jew-hatred and developments in the social media accountability and Trust & Safety space! You can imagine that the outrage algorithms are not particularly hip to our content, so your following, supporting and content-sharing are welcome!
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success in your important work!
Upstanders: How Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor of CyberWell Is Standing Up Against Antisemitism, Racism… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.