Federal MP has no faith in social media platforms stopping antisemitic hate
Federal Labor MP Josh Burns has detailed antisemitic attacks on himself, his staff and his partner, Victorian MP Georgie Purcell, saying he does not believe social media platforms are taking action to stop hatred against Jews.
Burns, a Jew who was the first MP to chair the Albanian government’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, said he had largely stopped reporting online instances of antisemitism to social media companies because complaints were ignored.
Appearing on Tuesday, Burns said Purcell, who is not Jewish, had also been subjected to “savage” abuse and the same accusations as him for Israel’s actions, but with an added “layer of misogyny and violent sexualisation”.
In one of the X posts shared in his presentation to the commission, Burns was called a “Nazi/terrorist supporter” while Purcell was compared to Adolf Hitler’s associate “Eva Braun”. Another example shown at the commission included a post about the birth of the couple’s daughter; Purcell was labeled a “Nazi c—” because she was “impregnated by a Zionist.”
“It’s very strange to know that they’ve had to be abused because they’re in a relationship with you – it’s a terrible feeling… Georgie is not Jewish, obviously her partner is Jewish, so is her daughter… it’s something she’s had to get inside and confront and she should never have had to do that,” Burns told the commission.
“I feel extremely guilty that he had to face this.”
Burns told the commission that he had reported 44 posts on Instagram and Facebook since November 2021, only three were removed, nine received confirmation of receipt, and the vast majority received “no response at all.”
“You lose faith in the reporting processes; I certainly don’t report everything I would otherwise do because I don’t think anything will be done about it,” Burns said.
Burns told the commission that Instagram “knew that I was looking for a new high chair for my six-month-old,” so it needed to “do a better job of making it a little safer online.”
He said he had reported the accounts to the eSafety Commissioner, but that his powers only allowed intervention if the poster maligned an individual, not to deal with attacks on Jews as a group of people.
Content moderation is “a tough thing to put on,” Burns said.
“My employees are kind and caring people and they don’t want to see this all day… social media companies rarely answer calls or report any results… [a complaint] disappearing into a black hole. This is extremely annoying [and] I would be lying if I said I had great confidence in social media companies to manage this; I don’t believe.”
Burns said social media companies “bear a huge responsibility for the toxic nature into which our political debates have descended” and that the online world has become “the largest arena of antisemitism we see on a daily basis”.
The MP also detailed the arson attack on the St Kilda election office in June 2024, which forced nearby residents to evacuate in the middle of the night and left businesses on the street without internet access for a week.
“It was pretty reckless and pretty dangerous,” Burns told the commission. Windows were broken, a horn was drawn on Burns’ face, and slogans such as “Zionism is fascism” were spray-painted. Fires were also lit in front of the entrance of his office.
He was shocked by the hatred directed towards his mostly non-Jewish staff following the attack.
“What I felt was most important was for my staff, this is their workplace. I felt like we were lost… How is this part of democracy that we value? How does it contribute to this debate? How is this going to solve anything in the Middle East?”
More to come
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Alexandra Smith is a senior writer and former state political editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
