Australia's biggest student website, boredofstudies.com, is embroiled in controversy after posts were found on its forum with viciously anti-Semitic messages such as "let's holocaust them".
According to ABC Australia, Bored of Studies has over 290,000 members and an average of 7 million hits a month. The site, which is recommended to students by schools and community councils as a study support network, took quick steps to ban the offending members when the hate messages were discovered.
On the implicated forum thread, photos of Nazi swastikas and burning Israeli flags were found alongside comments such as "kill da fucking Jews. Hate every single one of them… hope Iran nukes them." Even scarier than these comments were instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails (i.e. fire bombs) followed by instructions on finding synagogues in Sydney.
This incident comes on the heels of a recent report that anti-Semitic incidents in Australia have spiked this year. The report, published by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, reveals that the 962 anti-Semitic incidents that occurred this past year is double the annual average, with 27 of the incidents being attributed to physical violence.
Many students claim the other students were only writing in jest and the bans are overreactions, however the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) disagrees. ABC reports JBD's chief executive, Vic Alhadeff, as saying that the comments constitute racial hatred.
"There is absolutely nothing humorous about encouraging people to kill people, and that is what many of the comments on that website said," Mr. Alhadeff told ABC.
"There is certainly a place for humour in public debate. However, when those comments go into the area of encouraging people to carry out acts of racial hatred, that is wrong.
Mr Alhadeff says tighter controls on the site's forums are needed to ensure the incident is not repeated.
"Taking action to moderate after the comments are posted is too little, too late, because the damage has been done," he said.
