Trump's antisemitism special envoy nominee says platforms should label supposed misinformation

President Trump's nominee for antisemitism special envoy is at odds with his own administration's position on how tech platforms should respond to supposed misinformation and closer to the Biden administration's approach, telling Jewish Insider he supports labeling.

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun justified such action as compatible with "America’s tradition of free speech and allowing free speech anywhere and everywhere," saying in Jewish Insider's paraphrase that he simply wants to work with platforms to "curb the spread of antisemitic falsehoods online."

One example is a July New York Times article on hunger in Gaza amid Israel's war against Hamas, which featured a child with malnutrition without disclosing he had preexisting health conditions, according to Kaploun. The newspaper corrected the misleading portrayal several days later.

“I’m not exactly 100% sure of the actual number, but in that realm, a total disbalance and disproportionate view of people saw something that could be creating antisemitic behavior," he said. "All those people that saw it have incorrect information."

Kaploun said that "because of the advent of AI and those technologies, you have the ability to recognize when something is not factually correct and it should be labeled as such. I think that’s something that we’d like to target."

The nominee's description of how he'd like to work with social media companies echoes the Biden administration's portrayal of collaboration rather than coercion when it comes to policing alleged misinformation.

“There’s many other areas of working with the companies — the algorithms and things that have been now proven, that bots are busy promoting antisemitic rhetoric on the internet, how we get to some of that and preventing some of that," Kaploun said. 

While these are "not things that occur overnight ... I truly believe there is a true willingness of many people within the administration to tackle these problems and confront them head on, globally," he said.

Kaploun would not specify whether he wants platforms to go beyond labeling by removing supposed misinformation, according to Jewish Insider. 

"I’m not going to get into the specifics or the semantics of what that’s going to look like," he said. "We are going to work collectively and together with these companies and try and come up with productive solutions that will lower the disinformation and lower the hatred" and "do a better job of getting accurate facts out," Kaploun said.

He claimed that President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are "firmly behind the efforts that I am doing," and they have "made it very, very clear that the administration is fully behind the efforts that we’re going to do to combat antisemitism," including the promotion of "pro-Semitism," or explaining "the benefits of what it is the Jewish nation provides" and its history.

His Senate confirmation vote for the role, nested within the State Department, is expected before the December Christmas recess, according to Jewish Insider. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination earlier this month, with two Democrats joining all Republicans.