ADL-Backed Bipartisan Bill Threatens to Censor Israel Criticism on Social Media
The bill’s lead sponsors described it as part of an effort to prevent antisemitic hate. But their comments during a press conference on the measure suggest it will also target critics of Israel.
Free speech advocates are raising concerns that a new bipartisan bill would force social media companies to censor criticism of Israel on their platforms.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) rolled out the bill, called the Stopping Terrorists Online Presence and Holding Accountable Tech Entities (STOP HATE) Act, at a press conference Wednesday, alongside Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The bill would mandate that social media companies work with the federal government to implement moderation policies that curb the speech of groups the government designates as "terrorists." They'd be required to provide regular reports to the U.S. attorney general. Those that don't comply would be fined $5 million each day they refuse.
The lawmakers justified the measure by citing some recent examples of overt antisemitism and calls for violence on social media.
"We've seen an explosion of disinformation and antisemitic hate online in America and around the world," Gottheimer said. "After the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum, anti-Zionist extremists used social media to call for further violence, posting messages like 'may all Zionists burn.' Even AI platforms like Grok have posted deeply disturbing content, praising Adolf Hitler and Nazism."
Bacon said, "We want to be in a country that makes clear that antisemitism or any kind of racism is repugnant, unacceptable, not allowed in an online space, and that we have zero tolerance for it."
However, other statements from the lawmakers make clear that their definition of "antisemitism" goes far beyond expressions of hatred or calls for violence against Jewish people.
As Matthew Petti wrote for the libertarian magazine Reason: "The specific idea that Bacon had in mind was antisemitism, and he made clear that it includes criticism of the State of Israel in his book."
At the press conference, Bacon explicitly referenced recent protests against Israel's policy of starvation in Gaza.
"I saw protests out here the last two days, they were vile, right?," he said. "They were...you can see the antisemitism in their comments and how they were treating some of our members of Congress who are Jewish. I saw that firsthand."
Bacon did not specify what specific comments he was referring to. However, Petti noted:
Protesters stormed the congressional cafeteria on July 1 to call for food aid to Gaza, and interrupted Rep. Randy Fine (R–Fla.)—who has called for Palestinians to "starve away"—during a hearing on campus antisemitism last week.
Bacon also suggested that merely stating opposition to pro-Israel congresspeople, including himself, constitutes antisemitism.
"I even saw an article today. It was about me, but talking about we have to oppose congressmen who are pro-Zionists, right?" said Bacon, who is notably not Jewish. "It's all over our social media and it's unacceptable."
Gottheimer, meanwhile, said the policy was not just about combating terrorism, but about halting a "massive disinformation campaign influencing us every day."
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald—a critic of government efforts to regulate "misinformation"—suggested that the bill flies in the face of the right's supposed commitments to free speech.
"There was [a] full consensus on the Right for the last decade that Big Tech censorship was a great evil, especially if pressured and demanded by the U.S. government," he said on X. "All that changed [when] it came time to censor for Israel."
In a statement released Friday, the American‑Arab Anti‑Discrimination Committee (ADC) likewise described the STOP HATE Act as part of "the continuous efforts by lawmakers to silence, censor, and chill freedom of speech and expression in this country at the behest of Israel."
They warned that the bill gives the government, in tandem with pro-Israel groups like the ADL, "unfettered powers to police private social media companies, attack lawful expression, and levy fines of up to five million dollars each day if companies fail to silence and censor users."
This is not the first time Gottheimer and Bacon have introduced the STOP HATE Act. A similar version, introduced in 2023, died in committee.
When introducing that version of the bill, they were more explicit in their calls for government regulation of media—calling on the Department of Justice to require the news outlets Al Jazeera and its subsidiary AJ+, which are sponsored by the Qatari government, to register as foreign agents.
The two congressmen were also at the forefront of calls for the U.S. government to ban TikTok, which Gottheimer said was being used by the Chinese Communist Party to "boost anti-Israel and pro-Hamas videos in the United States." They have also introduced legislation that would criminalize efforts to boycott Israeli products.
Greenblatt, who spoke alongside the two legislators on Wednesday, has explicitly said that "Anti-Zionism is antisemitism." Though he's faced criticism for this stance, including from members of the ADL itself, he has only continued to double down.
In one infamous exchange during the outbreak of pro-Palestine protests on college campuses in 2024, Greenblatt suggested that students wearing keffiyehs—a kind of scarf commonly worn by Palestinians—were doing the equivalent of wearing a swastika armband.
More recently, he endorsed Immigration and Customs Enforcement's warrantless abduction of pro-Palestine organizer Mahmoud Khalil, who he accused—along with other pro-Palestine demonstrators—of being an asset of foreign governments and likened to Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
Wednesday's press release from the legislators on the STOP HATE Act cites the ADL's 2024 "Social Media Scorecard," as evidence that "the five major social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X—routinely failed to act on antisemitic hate reported to them."
That Scorecard page features a quote from Greenblatt, who said, "Social media platforms are still falling far too short when it comes to moderating antisemitic and anti-Israel content."
After the October 7, 2023 attacks led by Hamas, the ADL changed its methodology to categorize antisemitic incidents to not only include hate speech or threats directed at Jewish people, but also language expressing "opposition to Zionism."
The proposed STOP HATE Act comes at a time when American public opinion has dramatically shifted against Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza. According to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS, released last Friday:
Only 23% of Americans say Israel’s actions have been fully justified, a 27-point drop from a[n] October 2023 poll taken shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attacks. Another 27% now say those actions have been partially justified and 22% say that they have not been justified at all. In October 2023, just 8% said Israel’s actions were not justified at all.
In recent weeks, Israeli leaders have openly called for the mass displacement of two million Palestinians to make room for Jewish settlers. Meanwhile, at least 115 Palestinians—including more than 80 children—have reportedly starved due to Israel's restrictions on aid entering the Gaza Strip. Over 1,000 aid seekers have been killed, often by Israel Defense Forces soldiers, at aid sites jointly administered by the U.S. and Israel.
"The First Amendment is supposed to be the cornerstone of American democracy—our shield against censorship and government overreach," said Abed Ayoub, ADC's national executive director. "When members of Congress and state lawmakers start compromising our freedoms to satisfy the demands of a foreign government, we lose what makes this country free. We must reject any legislation that threatens our speech, our conscience, and our right to dissent."
(Image: Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft/Datawrapper)