Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Application That Identifies (((Jews))) Online Disappears From Google Browser, App Store

The developer of the Google Chrome extension Coincidence Detector, which identifies Jewish individuals and organizations by putting triple parentheses around their names, pulled the application last night after several news reports exposed it to the general public.

A Forward reporter was exploring the extension on her laptop in order to better write about it at around midnight eastern time when Coincidence Detector disappeared from her browser and Google’s app store.

The name “Coincidence Detector” reminds its users that Jews are involved in many facets of public life. It also replaces Israel with the words “Our Closest Ally.”

Google’s press office declined to comment on the record regarding specific applications and extensions, but a staffer on the Google Store’s customer service line said the developer of the application had pulled it because it had been “used to track a certain race.” Mic.com, which published the first report about the application, said Google took the extension down because it violated its policies against hate speech.

Google’s Developer Program Policies prohibit apps that “contain materials that threaten, harass, or bully other users” and “content advocating against groups of people based on their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity,” but the Coincidence Detector was available long enough to be downloaded by 2,500 users.

This use of technology to target Jews on the Internet reflects a broader trend.

As the Anti-Defamation League reported in May, “there are legions of anony­mous Twit­ter users who are exploit­ing the Inter­net to carry out these anti-Semitic cam­paigns against Jew­ish jour­nal­ists. While white suprema­cists used to pro­mote their anti-Jewish pro­pa­ganda on extrem­ist forums and ran­dom web­sites, they are now able to main­stream their hate on sites used by mil­lions of peo­ple and eas­ily recruit oth­ers to join in their efforts.”

Last night, the name of the application’s developer listed on the Google Store changed from “altrightmedia” to “TheRightStuff.” A twitter user with the same pseudonym as the latter developer took to social media to suggest that Jews forced Google to remove the application:

When asked for their policy on hate speech deletion, the Twitter press office pointed to their Hateful Conduct Policy, which prohibits tweets that “promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease.” The policy adds that Twitter also prohibits “accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.” When asked how incidents of possible anti-Semitism on Twitter are handled, or whether anti-Semitic tweets and users violated their Harassment Policy through the “targeted abuse or harassment of others,” Twitter sent a press release on the establishment of their Trust & Safety Council from February of this year, and referred other questions to the Anti-Defamation League, with whom they said they have a “safety partnership.”

The Anti-Defamation League press office could not be reached for comment.

As the website of “Mr. Right” also explains, he’s responsible for the podcast The Daily Shoah, a deeply anti-Semitic podcast which Mic magazine credited with establishing the habit of putting Jewish names in parentheses as far back as 2014.

The Right Stuff also announced via Twitter that although the Coincidence Detector extension is down for now, the underlying code is safe:

Related:

Here’s How Neo-Nazis Identify (((Jews))) on Twitter

• How Donald Trump Became the Darling of White Supremacists

Contact Laura Adkins at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @laura_e_adkins

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.