A web-browser modification which highlights Jewish names has been removed from Google’s online store for violating its hate speech policy, the company says.
The free Google Chrome plugin, ‘Coincidence Detector’, surrounded Jewish names with three brackets on either side. The plugin was developed by an anti-Semitic group aligned with the far-right in America.
According to Mic – which published a story on the app before it was removed – the plugin used a database of prominent Jewish people which developers were constantly updating.
The developers are believed to be the group behind the Right Stuff blog, which also publishes a podcast called 'The Daily Shoah' – "Shoah" being a Hebrew word used to describe the Holocaust.
The group's Twitter handle - with an oven as their profile picture - describes themselves as “Home of Rightwing trolls, offensive memes, and dissident political commentary.” On their blog, in response to Google pulling the plug-in from the store, the group released a article titled 'How to Spot a Jew in a World without the Coincidence Detector'.
In an email to Mic, the Right Stuff described the brackets as "echoes" which highlight the impact of Jewish people through history.
"The inner parenthesis represent the Jews' subversion of the home destruction of the family through mass-media degeneracy. The next represents the destruction of the nation through mass immigration, and the outer represents international Jewry and world Zionism,” they said.
Some Jewish Twitter users have responded with defiance, reclaiming the symbols by adding it to their profiles.
Records show the plugin was downloaded at least 2,518 times and had a rating of 4.9 stars. Reviews of the app ranged from condemnation to praise.
“The fact that it tracks down Jews and 'anti-whites' and allows for people to harass them really speaks volumes on how anti-semitic this app is. This is only designed with white supremacists in mind, and those who cry at this review and yell safe space at me: Just goes to show that even rightists, alt-rightists and idiots get triggered easily,” ChromiumCheetah posted, giving the app one star.
“Get this trash off of the internet and shove it down the racist hole it came from. Google you have no shame: this is not 'free speech' - it's free racism at your store,” Neal Wells wrote.
“Great extension! I had no clue there were so many coincidences involving pedophilia [sic] and gay marriage,” Walter Kovacs wrote. He gave the app five stars.
The app was being promoted through word of mouth on right-wing blogs and forums and had been online for over a month. It appears that media attention from Mic led to the ban.
Google’s move comes just days after the company, and other tech giants, made a commitment to the European Union that they would review and remove hate speech within 24 hours of posting.
