The Australian Government established the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion following the 2025 Bondi terrorist attack, in which the Jewish community were targeted in what was the most deadly terrorist attack on Australian soil. As Australia’s highest form of public inquiry, the Commission is examining the causes and impact of antisemitism on Australian society. Its goal is to recommend practical measures to improve public safety, strengthen social cohesion, and help ensure Jewish Australians can live free from discrimination and fear.
The Online Hate Prevention Institute has been retained by the Royal Commission as expert witnesses. Our CEO, Dr Andre Oboler, testified before the Commission this morning, May 12th 2026.
Routine antisemitism monitoring.
OHPI’s evidence to the Commission includes findings from our routine antisemitism monitoring project. This work provides long-term data on the prevalence and nature of antisemitism across major social media platforms and allows changes over time to be measured using a consistent methodology. The monitoring examines both the volume of antisemitic material and the narratives appearing within it.
OHPI’s monitoring is conducted by trained human analysts rather than through automated AI collection systems alone. This allows the monitoring to identify coded language, conspiracy narratives, contextual references, irony, visual symbolism, and evolving forms of antisemitic discourse that automated systems regularly struggle to interpret accurately. The monitoring also examines the surrounding context of discussions, including how antisemitic narratives spread through comments, reactions, and online communities. OHPI has conducted this work since before the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, creating a substantial baseline against which later increases in antisemitism could be measured.
The routine monitoring currently examines material across 10 social media platforms using a methodology designed to support comparisons over time and between platforms. The data submitted to the Royal Commission records a sharp increase in online antisemitism following October 7. OHPI’s submission also examines the major categories and sub-categories of antisemitism appearing across social media platforms, including traditional antisemitic conspiracy theories, Holocaust-related antisemitism, and antisemitic narratives connected to Israel and Zionism.
The routine monitoring forms part of OHPI’s broader work documenting online hate and extremism in Australia and internationally. This work has informed reports examining online antisemitism before October 7, the increase that followed, responses to the Bondi terrorist attack, responses to attacks on synagogues in Melbourne, and the broader normalisation of antisemitic discourse online.
The submission to the Royal Commission includes the following finding:
“133. The graph below shows how much antisemitism would be collected in 80 hours (8 hours on each of 10 platforms) during each sample collection period. It shows a sharp rise in the period after October 7, 2023 (the start of November 2023 to the end of January 2024). This rise from 272 items to 1449 items is a greater than five-fold increase (a 539% increase).”
The submission explains that the figure of 272 items is scaled from 244 items collected during the earlier monitoring period before LinkedIn was added to OHPI’s monitoring system. The later figure reflects the expanded monitoring across all 10 platforms.
OHPI LinkedIn • OHPI Instagram • OHPI Facebook • Bondi Report • Ambulance Attack Responses Report.