Jew Watch

Template:Short description Template:Pp Template:Sprotected2 Template:Infobox website Template:Antisemitism

Jew Watch was an antisemitic<ref name=AS/> website promoting Holocaust denial<ref>Levy, Steven. "Google: Watch Out For 'Watch'", Newsweek, 26 April 2004, accessed 23 November 2010. Template:Subscription required</ref> and negative claims about Jews. The claims included allegations of a conspiracy that Jews control the media and banking,<ref>Elkin-Koren, Niva; Salzberger, Eli M. (2004). Law, Economics and Cyberspace: The Effects of Cyberspace on the Economic Analysis of Law, Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 72.

Also see, regarding media, "Jewish Controlled Press" Template:Webarchive, Jew Watch, accessed 23 November 2010.</ref> as well as accusations of Jewish involvement in terrorist groups. The site contained propaganda, according to Sam Varghese of The Age, similar to that used in Nazi Germany.<ref>Varghese, Sam. "Online petition launched against anti-Semitic site", The Age, 7 April 2004, accessed 23 November 2010.</ref> It was widely considered a hate site.<ref name=AS/> Jew Watch received support from Stormfront, a white nationalist and neo-Nazi site.<ref>"Daily Digest", San Francisco Chronicle, 27 April 2004, accessed 23 November 2010.</ref> The site described itself as a "not-for-profit library for private study, scholarship, or research [that keeps] a close watch on Jewish Communities and organizations worldwide".<ref>Anderson, Jack; Cohn, Douglas. "Hate groups discover the Internet", The Hour, 24 October 2000, p. 134.</ref>

The site received media attention in April 2004 when it emerged as the first result in a Google search for the word "Jew" and a petition was started to get the site removed from Google search results.<ref name="Wired1">Brandon, John. "Dropping the bomb on Google", Wired, 11 May 2004, accessed 23 November 2010. Template:Webarchive 22 November 2010.</ref><ref name="RemoveJewWatch">"RemoveJewWatch.com", WhyNot Media, accessed 23 November 2010. Template:Webarchive 23 November 2010.</ref> A scandal in 2006 involved solicitations for donations to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina being redirected to Jew Watch.<ref name="ConsumerAffairs">Missouri Sues To Stop Phony Katrina Relief Sites Template:Webarchive ConsumerAffairs. September 13, 2005</ref>

OwnershipEdit

Established in 1998,<ref>Finkelstein, Seth. "Frank Weltner (JewWatchCom) replies", sethf.com, 4 June 2004, accessed 23 November 2010.</ref> the website was owned and maintained by Frank Weltner, a member of the National Alliance, a white nationalist and white separatist organization.<ref name=splc>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="He Is A Nazi">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Perlmutter">Template:Cite journal "[O]ne example is a white supremacist web site called Jew Watch"</ref>

ThemesEdit

Jew Watch featured articles, videos, and links, organized in the form of a Web directory. Content was organized under topic headings such as "Jewish Controlled Press", "Jewish Banking & Financial Manipulations", "Jewish Communist Rulers & Killers", and "Zionist Occupied Governments – Z.O.G."

Jew Watch claimed that Jews control the world's financial systems and media.<ref name=JewishBankingandFinance>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=JewishMedia>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It also claimed that the "All Anti-Christian Jewish Red Commissars" killed 100 million Christians in Russia from 1917 to 1945 under the orders of "Trotsky, the Jewish Commissar of Commissars".<ref name="DeadChristians">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It said that global Jewry is the driving force behind both global capitalism and communism.<ref name="JewsCapitalismCommunism">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The site linked to others which speculate that Jews have committed or are planning genocide against the Palestinian people;<ref name="JewsGenocidePalestinian">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the site also promoted Holocaust denial, maintaining that the Holocaust either never happened or was greatly exaggerated.<ref name="Holocaust">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ControversyEdit

Google Search resultsEdit

Many news sources, weblogs, and general information sites linked to Jew Watch creating a Google bomb that led to the site being the first search result for the term "Jew." In May 2004, Steven Weinstock launched an online petition on RemoveJewWatch.com to remove Jew Watch from Google. By mid-2004 the site had collected over 125,000 signatures.<ref name="Wired1" /><ref name ="RemoveJewWatch" />

In response to complaints, including one from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Google added an explanation to searches for the site. They said their results are automatically ranked by computer algorithms, and that they do not approve of any of the results.<ref>Daniels, Jessie (2009). Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 170.

For the ADL letter to Sergey Brin, see: "Google Responds to ADL" Template:Webarchive, Anti-Defamation League, 21 April 2004, accessed 23 November 2010.
For Google's explanation, see: "An explanation of our search results" Archived 2004-06-07 at the Wayback Machine Google, accessed 23 November 2010.</ref>

In December 2004, OSCE's Sandy Starr addressed the issues of freedom of speech:

When it transpired that the anti-Semitic website Jew Watch ranked highest in the search engine Google's results for the search term "Jew", a Remove Jew Watch campaign was established, to demand that Google remove the offending website from its listings. Fortunately for the principle of free speech, Google did not capitulate to this particular demand ... Forced to act on its own initiative, Remove Jew Watch successfully used Googlebombing ... Better still would have been either a proper contest of ideas between Jew Watch and Remove Jew Watch, or alternatively a decision that Jew Watch was beneath contempt and should simply be ignored. Not every crank and extremist warrants attention, even if they do occasionally manage to spoof search engine rankings.<ref>Starr, Sandy. "Hate speech on the Internet", p. 140, accessed 18 August 2011, in "The Media Freedom Internet Cookbook", Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 16 December 2004.</ref>

In 2013, Jew Watch was still appearing on the first pages of Google Search results for the term "Jew."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Hurricane Katrina solicitationsEdit

St. Louis City Circuit Judge Julian L. Bush permanently barred Frank Weltner and his site InternetDonation.org from soliciting funds in Missouri for charitable purposes after it was revealed by State Attorney General Jay Nixon that Frank Weltner had set up multiple websites soliciting funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina and then redirected those wishing to donate to his site that collected money for Jew Watch.<ref name="ConsumerAffairs" /> A press release from the Attorney General said:

Anyone who takes advantage of the generosity and compassion of his fellow citizens in an attempt to fund his hate-filled Web site should never again be in the position to solicit charitable funds from well-meaning Missourians.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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ReferencesEdit

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