After charges of antisemitism from the Anti-Defamation League
Fox News deleted an A. F. Branco cartoon from its social media platforms.
After the Anti-Defamation League called out Fox News on Wednesday, the cable giant deleted its social-media posts portraying Jewish philanthropist George Soros as a “puppet master”—a common antisemitic trope.
Posted to both the network’s Instagram and Facebook pages this week, the cartoon by conservative illustrator A.F. Branco features the liberal billionaire Soros—who has long been a right-wing catch-all bogeyman—controlling local prosecutors and attorneys general.
© A. F. Branco/Creators
The Soros figure, pulling puppet strings emblazoned with the words “$ORO$,” forces the other characters—both portrayed as Democratic donkeys—to hold up signs reading “Defund Police” and “No Bail,” obviously referencing right-wing complaints about progressive local and state criminal-justice policies and Soros’ supposed influence on them.
Fox News captioned the cartoons with the phrase “The puppet master” on both its Instagram and Facebook pages. Before being deleted on Wednesday afternoon, the IG post racked up roughly 16,000 likes.
“As we have told Fox News numerous times, casting a Jewish individual as a puppet master who manipulates national events for malign purposes conjures up longstanding antisemitic tropes about Jewish power + contributes to the normalization of antisemitism,” the ADL tweeted on Wednesday. “This needs to be removed.”
Shortly thereafter, Fox News deleted the Facebook and Instagram posts.
Read the full Daily Beast report here.