X Platform Amplifies Antisemitic Conspiracies Amid Spain-Morocco Migrant Crisis

The social media platform X (formerly Twitter), owned by Elon Musk, has become a major vector for spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories related to the recent migrant crisis at the Spain-Morocco border. According to a report released by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) on Sunday, over 100 million users viewed antisemitic content on X within just 72 hours following the incident. This surge highlights both the viral nature of antisemitic narratives on social media and X's failure or unwillingness to curb such content.

The crisis began last Thursday when between 50,000 and 60,000 migrants crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, triggered by a social media rumor about border openings. While most migrants returned to Morocco shortly after, a few hundred refugees from war-torn African countries remain seeking asylum. However, alongside the humanitarian event, a wave of antisemitic conspiracy theories rapidly spread on X, falsely blaming Israel and the Jewish people for orchestrating the migrant influx to destabilize Europe.

CAM's analysis identified 173 high-impact posts from 119 influential accounts that propagated these conspiracies, collectively garnering 103.1 million views, 1.9 million likes, and 368,400 shares. Notable posts included one from the account Forbidden HQ depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a boat releasing migrants into Ceuta, which alone received 5.3 million views. Other posts falsely claimed that Israel planned the migrant surge as retaliation against Spain for criticizing Israeli policies, with some accounts alleging Mossad involvement. These narratives were shared and amplified by figures across the political spectrum, including far-right, far-left, and radical Islamist accounts.

CAM CEO Sasha Roytman emphasized that antisemitism has become the default explanation for extreme events, uniting disparate extremist groups through shared conspiratorial language. He called on social media platforms to immediately stop algorithmically promoting hateful content, warning that X currently rewards the most inflammatory and conspiratorial explanations, which in this case are antisemitic.

This incident reflects broader trends documented by CAM, which recently reported that antisemitic videos on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts go viral nearly seven times more often than other content. The Spain-Morocco migrant crisis thus not only posed a humanitarian challenge but also exposed the dangerous spread of antisemitic disinformation on social media.