When the Anti-Defamation League’s Oren Segal visits Massachusetts next week, he plans to deliver a clear warning about how rapidly evolving technologies are transforming the spread of antisemitism and extremism.
Segal, the ADL’s senior vice president of counter-extremism & intelligence, will be the keynote speaker at the group’s event in Auburndale on March 26 honoring its community partners, “Standing Together: Combating Antisemitism, Extremism, and Emerging Threats in AI and Online.”
Segal said the details of his talk will depend on events unfolding in the days ahead. But the core message is already clear: AI tools, social media platforms, and gaming ecosystems have become powerful engines for amplifying antisemitic content and disinformation.
“Technology is literally transforming how antisemitism is spreading,” Segal said during a recent interview. He said artificial intelligence does not merely mirror existing bias; it can “amplify it at scale,” reaching audiences faster and in more insidious ways than traditional channels.
Segal said these dynamics are especially visible in the context of the current war involving Iran, where conspiracy theories and age-old antisemitic tropes are being repackaged and pushed online to global audiences.
According to ADL’s monitoring, users on major social media platforms are only “a couple of clicks or swipes away” from content tying the conflict to unrelated scandals such as the Epstein files, or invoking classic antisemitic myths about Jewish control, greed, and bloodlust. These narratives, he said, are finding “modern vehicles and modern tools” that give them unprecedented reach.
Segal believes many ordinary users underestimate how pervasive such content has become in their feeds. He said people are being “inundated with disinformation, if not outright antisemitism,” often without realizing how coordinated or widespread it is.
Compounding the problem is the rise of generative AI, which enables the creation of convincing but entirely fabricated images and videos. Segal pointed to AI-generated clips that purport to show massive bombardments of Tel Aviv or other locations, including imagery of the city under a mushroom cloud – events that never occurred.
He said the proliferation of fabricated war footage creates a “double crisis:” not only do false depictions inflame tensions and spread hatred, they also cause viewers to doubt authentic evidence of real atrocities. “When there’s so much false information out there, it makes people question anything they’re seeing, even the real stuff,” he said.
Segal reserves some of his strongest concerns for gaming platforms and adjacent online ecosystems, where younger users spend significant amounts of time.
He cited an ADL report on Steam, one of the world’s largest online gaming and social platforms, which identified millions of pieces of antisemitic or extremist content. According to the report, users routinely employ avatars and profile images to display Nazi symbols, terrorist organization logos, or images of past antisemitic mass shooters.
The widespread use of hateful imagery in this context, he suggested, signals that many users view these platforms as “points of entry” to build communities organized around extremist ideologies.
Segal also warned that gaming vernacular, memes, and iconography have migrated into other online forums that glorify violence and normalize antisemitism. He described a broader online ecosystem that “creates experiences for kids that essentially radicalize them.”
ADL has observed links between these spaces and a series of recent school shootings in the U.S. Segal argued that “average parents and school administrators” often have little understanding of how extreme and accessible these spaces are, or how directly they can influence violent behavior offline.
Segal stressed that a central part of ADL’s mission is to identify threats and share them with law enforcement to protect Jewish institutions and other vulnerable communities.
In addition, ADL is directly engaging with technology companies. The organization is testing large language models (LLMs) – the AI systems that power many chatbots and content generators – to determine how they handle extremist and antisemitic content. The findings are then shared with the companies in an effort to improve detection and mitigation systems.
Honorees at the March 26 event comprise Wilmington Middle School Principal Brian Caira and Assistant Principal Daniel Faircloth; Sgt. Matt Owens, representing the Massachusetts State Police Hate Crimes Awareness and Response Team (HART); and Sam Gechter, representing the leadership of Shalom Somerville.
Looking ahead to his visit to Massachusetts, Segal emphasized that the issues he studies are not confined to any one city, state, or demographic group.
“No matter where you are in the country, everybody is using these tools,” he said, referring to social media, AI systems, and gaming platforms. The challenge, he said, is to fully understand how tools designed for connection, creativity, and entertainment can also “animate or normalize antisemitism.
“The better we understand that,” Segal said, “the better off we’ll be in our fight against it.” Θ
To register for this ADL event, visit support.adl.org/event/standing-together.
