Strategic visibility in precarious times: Ethnoreligious content creators and algorithmic navigation on Instagram

Navigating algorithmic spaces

Content creators and everyday social media users are not disconnected from “offline realms” when engaging in social media spaces; rather, “off” and “online” media spheres interplay with and influence one another (Tufekci, 2017). This dynamic interaction is especially visible in political spaces where actors engage with platforms to create, spread, and strengthen persuasion or activism campaigns targeted at various audiences in the hopes of a particular offline outcome or behavior change (Bossetta, 2018; Tufekci, 2017). Global interconnectedness enabled through social media allows dynamic political and activist information flows to bridge on- and offline realms across space and time, making content creators—as key intermediaries in the consumption, processing, and sharing of geopolitical context and conflict—crucial subjects of examination (von Sikorski et al., 2025).

These creators participate in sociopolitical spaces governed by platforms’ digital architecture. Bossetta (2018) refers to “digital architectures” as overall affordances distinct to, though also overlapping across, platforms that include four components: network structure, functionality, algorithmic filtering, and datafication. Network structure, functionality, and datafication refer to the governance and protocols for how users connect with one another, access each other’s content, and the digital traces a user leaves within their platform engagement (Bossetta, 2018). While all these components are crucial for understanding platform governance holistically, this study allocates analytical emphasis to algorithmic filtering—how platform decisions directly shape the distribution and visibility of content, and how creators adapt their communicative choices in response. Following Bucher (2017), algorithmic environments are socio-technical spaces that encompass the technical components of algorithms (designed rules that direct platform functioning), their mediating impact (how algorithms act as intermediaries in social life, raising questions of power and accountability), and users’ interpretation (how users conceive of and interact with algorithms). This study adopts this socio-technical operationalization of algorithmic environments when considering creators’ responses to and interactions with changing and tense online realms.

While these architectures are algorithmically constrained, content creators retain autonomy and creativity in shaping their self-expression within these boundaries (Bossetta, 2018; boyd, 2011). Users must continuously navigate, work around, and at times optimize these parameters to achieve particular social media goals—such as digital activism or political persuasion. A creator seeking to reach diverse audiences is encouraged to opt into these affordances to increase visibility across feeds curated for individual users allowing social and political movements to leverage digital architecture to disseminate information, raise awareness, and mobilize participation (Mundt et al., 2018; Tufekci, 2017).

The algorithmic structure of social media can connect dispersed audiences but can also isolate pockets of users—’echo chambers’ or “filter bubbles”—where users engage with like-minded content confirming their biases (Flaxman et al., 2016). Creators must therefore rely on their perception of algorithm sorting and functioning due to limited platform transparency, theorizing upon the “algorithmic imaginary”—a point of view on how algorithms are created and function, based on lived platform experiences (Bucher, 2017). This imaginary speaks to the algorithm’s hegemonic power, making the ability to strategically engage with it a valuable skill (Bucher, 2017). Creators strategically engage to either challenge algorithmic functioning (e.g. avoiding shadowbanning) or conform to it (e.g. hyper-engaging in algorithmically rewarding practices) (Karizat et al., 2021).

However, algorithms tend to favor emotional (e.g. anger, fear) or sensational (e.g. controversial) content due to its higher engagement potential (Lewis and Marwick, 2017). Creators can mirror or strategically adapt their content to align with algorithmically amplified material. Crucially, their engagement choices also shape what audiences encounter—followers’ feeds are curated based on their interactions with creators and the recommendations those interactions generate, producing algorithmic effects that extend creators’ influence beyond their own individualistic choices (Schmuck et al., 2022; Von Sikorski et al., 2025). Platform governance and algorithmic selectivity limit the expressive decisions available to those seeking visibility; creators, in turn, often self-edit or avoid language that, while permissible, could provoke controversy or attract harassment (Duffy and Meisner, 2023).

Creator labor, authenticity, and politics

Navigating algorithmic imaginaries, creators curate outward-facing, aspirational identities that resonate with followers (Arriagada and Bishop, 2021; Banet-Weiser, 2012). Rather than reflecting daily life, these personas are carefully crafted through intentional “entrepreneurial labor”—where personal and creative expression of identity is intertwined with professional platform work (Neff, 2015). Such labor is central to building credibility and perceived authenticity with audiences, cultivating trusting relationships essential for political and social communication (Von Sikorski et al., 2025). Creators must therefore balance the performance of authenticity with the structural demands of algorithmic visibility—a balance especially key for cultivating trust among “affective publics” (Papacharissi, 2014): audiences who actively engage with narratives and online actors to understand and feel connected to contemporary political or social issues. Dynamic, networked spaces invite affective publics to build emotional and intellectual ties to one another, making content creators critical entry points for trust-building as affective informational intermediaries.

Content creators act as more than informational guides; they are curators and amplifiers of credible political or social news, capable of raising awareness and increasing followers’ political knowledge (Schmuck et al., 2022). Creators engaging in politics or activism are often described as political “influencers” or “content creators,” whether they address politics year-round or only during key events—including lifestyle creators who intermittently address political issues (Riedl et al., 2023). Conversely, creators who consciously abstain from political messaging may be considered non-political creators—a decision that nonetheless constitutes a form of political expression (Von Sikorski et al., 2025). Advocacy and activism fall within particular strands of this work, as these creators raise awareness, build perceived importance of issues, and encourage action (Riedl et al., 2023; Von Sikorski et al., 2025).

These dynamics intensify during periods of crisis, when creators interpret and share breaking news for followers—acting as trusted authoritative sources, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic (Schmuck and Harff, 2024). This is further amplified when creators share firsthand experiences from crisis contexts, including images or commentary from war zones—otherwise dubbed “war influencers” (Divon and Eriksson Krutrök, 2025). War influencers engage in tactical, algorithmic behavior, deploying memes, humor, viral trends, and info-tainment to increase the visibility and shareability of “authentic” first-person war reporting, building credibility and trust with audiences to interpret and share the complexities of conflict.

Ethnoreligious creators & Jewish digital identity

The content creators examined here integrate their ethnic and religious identity within entrepreneurial labor, intertwining deeply intimate self-presentation with tactical social media work. This study focuses on “ethnoreligious content creators”—defined as “creators whose content is tied to their religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage” with “distinctive pressures shaped by the visibility of their identities” (Divon et al, 2026). The goal of ethnoreligious creators is not to operate within siloed identity spaces, but to market their ethnoreligious personas both to niche audiences who share their background and to broader publics drawn by cultural or political curiosity. This requires layered negotiation as these creators perform “authenticity” for in-group members while acting as intermediaries for out-group members less familiar with their traditions. Yet algorithmic barriers (e.g. echo chambers) and sociopolitical constraints (e.g. increasing polarization) can inhibit interactions with new out-group audiences (Flaxman et al., 2016).

Ethnoreligious creators face particular challenges on social media, as their outward identity may belong to non-dominant social identity groups historically less rewarded with visibility by algorithms (Banet-Weiser, 2012). The labor to sustain visibility—while also confronting harassment resulting from that visibility—represents an additive burden placed upon ethnoreligious creators (Arriagada and Bishop, 2021). Platforms may amplify hateful or stereotypical speech through the algorithm’s rewarding of sensational content or through discriminatory content moderation policies (Divon and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, 2022). Yet ethnoreligious creators can also carve out digital spaces to build community, relay cultural information, and confront stereotypes—as seen with Muslim women in India combining offline protest with Instagram discourse to confront anti-Muslim hate, centering women’s experiences (Bhatia, 2022), or Indigenous Australian creators responding to “settler gazes” through acts of resistance and resilience (Carlson and Frazer, 2020). These cases illustrate how ethnoreligious creators leverage visibility to reclaim and defend their identities even under conditions of structural disadvantage.

Jewish ethnoreligious creators represent one such group navigating the inequalities of platform systems shaped by hegemonic white, Christian structures (Noble, 2018). Jewish creators manifest identity on social media in varied forms—religious, cultural, ethnic, racial, or national (in relation to Israel and statehood; Beacken, 2024b; Divon and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, 2022; Divon et al., 2026)—raising awareness about antisemitism, advocating for Israel-related causes, and creating satirical content reflecting Jewish life. Jewish ethnoreligious creators often exist as a niche, highly interconnected network with smaller, more insular audiences reflective of minority community structures (Himelboim and Golan, 2023)—comprising a distinct online public sphere for communicating social and political issues from uniquely Jewish perspectives.

However, foregrounding identity online exposes creators to heightened risks of hate and harassment. Research documents antisemitism on social media, including antisemitic content on TikTok (Weimann and Masri, 2022), targeted harassment campaigns (Beacken, 2024a; Woolley and Joseff, 2018) and antisemitic conspiracy theories circulated by influential accounts and chatbots (Conger, 2025). After October 7th, antisemitism surged across popular social media platforms (Rose and Matlach, 2024). Studies identified a rise in classic antisemitic tropes—Holocaust inversion, conspiracies of Jewish global power, and dehumanizing rhetoric (Becker et al., 2024a; Beinartbhabein, 2024)—alongside calls for violence and “false flag” conspiracies (Rose and Matlach, 2024). The environment for Jewish voices grew increasingly tense, with Jewish groups facing mounting pressure to combat antisemitism while avoiding missteps that could be weaponized by adversarial actors online (Pistone and Rudberg, 2024). Hirsh (2024) characterizes post–October 7th antisemitism as an effort to isolate Jews from spaces once considered “home”—pushing notions of Jewish alienation and making broader coalition-building less feasible and less desired by non-Jewish actors. This is consequential: coalition-building for collective action is key to resisting oppression, seeking change, and cultivating wide-ranging support during times of minority community crisis (Mundt et al., 2018).

In response, Jewish content creators engage in counter speech—including humorous memes—to challenge antisemitism (Aguilera-Carnerero et al., 2025), though such resistance is often met with moderation bias, including post removals while original antisemitic content remains visible (Divon and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, 2022). Antisemitic content is further difficult to identify and remove due to intentionally coded language, dog whistles, and claims of “protected” speech (Becker et al., 2024b). Visibility for ethnoreligious creators thus carries both rewards—greater reach—and risks—increased harassment and hate. Ethnoreligious creators proactively strategize to account for both (Divon and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, 2022), while sustaining identity-centric entrepreneurial labor on platforms (Neff, 2015).

Grounded in theories of content creators as conduits and interpreters of global political and social information, coupled with the distinctiveness of ethnoreligious creator obstacles and opportunities, this study asks the following:

Digital observation

This study engaged Jewish content creators for their ability to reach and resonate with niche Jewish audiences through identity expression (Divon and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, 2022). Audiences often look to them to interpret unfolding events given their perceived credibility and identity-based expertise (Divon and Eriksson Krutrök, 2025; Schmuck and Harff, 2024). Jewish creators were identified primarily on Instagram, a popular site for news consumption and activism among younger generations (Riedl et al., 2023), through (1) non-social media online research, (2) Instagram’s algorithmic recommendations and account Follower/Following lists, and (3) referrals during interviews—reflecting this community’s tight-knit nature (Noy, 2008). I conducted systematic digital observation drawing on conceptualizations of ethnoreligious content creators who consistently integrate Jewish identity into their digital labor across posts and stories.

The Jewish community is a diverse, heterogeneous population spanning geographies, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religiosity, and political beliefs. To create a comparable and cohesive sample, this study narrows its scope to content creators who (1) situate their identity-based activism and political communication within US political and social settings, (2) hold American politically progressive or liberal orientations, and (3) post general support for Israel.

First, selected creators integrated US partisan or political news (e.g. US university protests, political violence) or US-based social issues (e.g. reproductive rights) within their feeds and stories. This produces a bounded, US-centric sample—a noted limitation—though the goal is for findings around identity-based communicative strategies to be applicable beyond US or Jewish contexts.

Second, Jewish Americans historically vote Democrat, even with a recent slight uptick in Republican presidential ticket voting (Hartig et al., 2025; Mitchell, 2021). This study examines how historically progressive or liberal American Jews confront and negotiate sociopolitical contexts relating to the Israel–Hamas War in online settings. By focusing on historically progressive or liberal creators, this study examines the communicative shifts that emerge when creators must negotiate their long-held political alignments alongside their Jewish identity commitments in an increasingly tense post–October 7th online environment. It is precisely these navigational tensions that this study seeks to understand. American Jews who vote Republican or Independent constitute an important analytical group warranting further examination; however, for the sake of a comparable qualitative sample, creators who posted in support of globally recognized progressive or liberal issues (e.g. reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental activism) were prioritized. This does not preclude these creators from also holding conservative or libertarian views, nor does a progressive orientation necessarily translate to support for a Democratic candidate.

Third, significant heterogeneity exists within the American Jewish community regarding Israel, Zionism, and antisemitism—consensus on complex and fraught issues is neither expected nor assumed (Silver and Alper, 2024). Relevant creators posted varying degrees of general support for Israel: ranging from affirming Israel’s right to exist and raising awareness of Israeli hostages in Gaza, to explicitly defending Israeli government or military actions. This does not mean creators’ posts were devoid of nuance, Palestinian empathy, or outrage over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This study emphasizes the complexity of identity-based sociopolitical communication and should not be read as deploying binary pro/anti-Israel framings (see Appendix 1).

Interviews

Interview participants were drawn from the digital observation pool. I conducted 15 semi-structured Zoom interviews (June–October 2024), each approximately one hour and recorded upon permission. Participants represented diverse content-creation spheres (e.g. beauty, entertainment, education) and follower counts ranging from 10,000 to 300,000 (average: 26–50k) (see Appendix 1). Participants were contacted via email or Instagram DM. The interview protocol asked participants to reflect on shifts in sociopolitical communication style, engagement, and self-presentation before and after October 7th within their algorithmic environment and lived-feed experiences ¹ (see Appendix 1). Interviews also offered opportunities for participants to confirm their left- or center-leaning ideologies—which did not always align with partisan preferences—and to elaborate on their relationships to American audiences. Conversations addressed antisemitism, perspectives on Israel, and responses to the Israel–Hamas War. All participants supported Israel’s right to exist while expressing varying critique of Israeli, US, and pro-Palestinian actors, as described in Findings. Given the sensitivity of these topics, pseudonyms were used. Per IRB protocol, ² participants were briefed and gave verbal consent.

Thematic analysis

Qualitative thematic analysis was employed to explore nuances, similarities, and contradictions within the interview data, chosen for its flexibility in identifying and organizing themes across a large textual dataset while remaining grounded in theory. For each interview, I created memos noting demographic information, highlighted quotes, and key insights organized by categories such as “social media,” “community,” and “politics.” Following Braun and Clarke’s (2006) framework, I refamiliarized myself with the dataset, conducted categorical coding across all transcripts, and iteratively refined codes through cross-comparison until overarching themes emerged describing creators’ post–October 7th tactics and practices. Iterative comparison continued until thematic saturation was reached. As Saunders et al. (2018) emphasize, saturation is best understood as a process marked by diminishing returns rather than a fixed number of interviews or themes.

Confronting new norms of online division

Interviewees’ entire ecosystem of operating within algorithmic environments to guide affective publics on social media—including sharing, designing, and reproducing content, as well as receiving and interacting with political and non-political information—shifted after October 7th. Monica* ³ described feeling “safe” on social media before October 7th; her bio featured emoji flags signaling her Latina, Queer, and Jewish identities, and she believed she had built meaningful relationships, especially within the Instagram book community. She was then “shocked” to see her feed fill with posts framing violence against civilians as legitimate because Israel is a “colonizer”—consistent with false flag theories and justifications of violence documented in post–October 7th antisemitism (Becker et al., 2024a; Rose and Matlach, 2024). Monica* described a new “super toxic” environment where “I no longer feel like social media is a safe place for any Jew.” Jenny* agreed, characterizing her post–October 7th experience as “night and day . . . it’s been nonstop addressing antisemitic, anti-Jewish rhetoric and propaganda, and trying to combat disinformation and erasure of connection to Israel.” In tandem with scholarship on the dynamic interplay of on- and offline sociopolitical realms (Bossetta, 2018; Tufekci, 2017), these interviewees experienced a transformative shift in their engagement with Instagram, deeply shaped by international political events.

Lara* observed that after October 7th both “Jewish influencers” and “influencers who are Jewish” realized “it’s really shitty to be Jewish on the Internet”—showing that foregrounding—or even occasionally referencing—Jewish identity was enough to trigger harassment and hate, consistent with documented targeting of real and perceived Jewish users online (Woolley and Joseff, 2018). The publicly visible persona of being Jewish became newly vulnerable on Instagram—a risk already potent for ethnoreligious creators who must simultaneously optimize for and protect themselves from algorithmic visibility (Divon et al, 2026). As Lara* put it, sides had “doubled down” and communication across differences largely collapsed.

Several interviewees—including Jessie*, Abigail*, Stephanie*, Annie*, and Zachary*—expressed a desire to reach non-Jewish affective publics following October 7th, consistent with ethnoreligious creator practices of bridge-building between in-group and out-group audiences (Divon and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, 2022). Yet as hateful comments and unfollows mounted, that desire became harder to realize. Stephanie*, Annie*, and Zachary* described a two-tiered hurdle to breaking out of their Jewish “echo chamber”: a technical challenge of navigating the algorithm to push content to wider audiences, and an ideological barrier—overcoming what Stephanie* described as her perception of audiences as “brainwashed” by anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda. The underlying fear was one of normalization—showcasing second-order effects of algorithmic filtering—through creator choices perpetuating harmful material to followers: interviewees questioned whether engaging with and sharing hateful anti-Jewish, anti-Israel rhetoric had become the new norm of social media discourse. This proved challenging both structurally, due to lived experiences of echo chambers and algorithmic biases, and socially, in a climate where disputing sides were unwilling to engage—underscoring the communicative obstacles deriving from these digital architectures, in particular that of algorithmic filtering (Bossetta, 2018). Aaron* echoed this “main-streamification,” describing social media as a place where “extreme” political opinions had become commonplace. Jane* observed that “polarization” and “alienation” intensified after October 7th to the point where the “breakdown in communication just, like, went over a cliff.”

This prevailing sense of political alienation and polarization had direct consequences for creators’ communicative goals. The compounding obstacles of algorithmic invisibility and social hostility hindered creators’ cultivation of trust and authority with audiences—thwarting their ability to guide “affective publics” (Papacharissi, 2014) in filtering, sharing, and interpreting sociopolitical information around antisemitism and the Israel–Hamas War. Whether attributing this to “brainwashing” by propaganda or to echo chambers siloing Jewish voices from non-Jewish ones, creators across the sample felt politically and socially alienated within the new norms shaping their online spaces—with meaningful consequences for the communicative strategies they adopted in response.

Rerouting navigation in activism & politics

Responding to a new social media reality where political narratives around U.S. elections and the Israel–Hamas War became “dangerous”—as described by Aaron* and Jenny*—Jewish content creators reconfigured their political and activist messaging to reflect their changing Instagram personas. Akin to practices seen among influencers in times of sociopolitical crisis (Divon and Eriksson Krutrök, 2025), these creators navigated several competing considerations when crafting post–October 7th content. Many were still in grief, shock, and mourning, describing social media burnout from constantly keeping up with the news. As Stephanie* said, “I’m not doing this anymore. It’s not sustainable. I’m gonna burn,” while Naomi* described feeling “battered.” At the same time, creators wanted to express an “authentic” social media voice appropriate to the tragic moment but struggled with how to do so. Balancing personal authenticity, performed authenticity for followers, and audience expectations—consistent with goals of social media entrepreneurial labor (Arriagada and Bishop, 2021; Banet-Weiser, 2012; Duffy and Meisner, 2023) and scholarship on creators navigating crisis (Schmuck and Harff, 2024)—proved a difficult act at a time of intense emotional vulnerability.

Faced with these pressures, interviewees diverged in how they chose to navigate Instagram’s polarized climate, pursuing three main strategies while still foregrounding their Jewish identity. The first was to lean further into political or religious expression. Emily*, who had expressed her Jewish identity more vocally after the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018, said that after October 7th she “upped her game,” adding the word “Zionist” and an Israeli flag emoji to her bio. Although she had always identified as a Zionist, she had never felt compelled to state it explicitly. Now, she wanted users to immediately understand her position—presenting an “authentic” identity that could either invite or repel followers rather than a performative one aimed at pacifying a broader audience.

Others went further. Jane* recounted seeing creators on her feed “become more and more radicalized” in both directions—people she “really love[s] and respect[s]” had gone “very far off the deep end,” either wholly defending Israeli government actions or publicly rejecting their Jewish identity entirely. Instagram’s heightened polarization encouraged creators to cater more aggressively to narrower bases, consistent with algorithmic favor toward sensational or emotional content (Lewis and Marwick, 2017). Hannah* described such extreme or attention-grabbing posts as “gotcha” tactics that—though effective at going viral—trivialized the seriousness of the situation. Zachary* warned against this directly:

I’m very pro-Israel, and very pro-peace. I make sure to let people know that, because I know there are people who are a little too radical for me in the Zionist community, obviously in the anti-Zionist community, too, and I just make sure to try and keep people in check as much as I can.

The second strategy was to opt out of political expression altogether. Sarah* explained, “I don’t speak about politics,” especially because “anything” could be interpreted as political—reflecting how polarized offline environments translate into online realms, further obscured by social media’s ambiguity of intent. She considered combating antisemitism and raising awareness for Israeli hostages to be humanitarian issues rather than political ones. Jenny* similarly emphasized that she is “not political” and “not religious” in her bio to distance herself from “extreme” affiliations: “I think a lot of people [sic] are, kind of, so to the extreme. And I think a lot of people who align themselves very strongly with a political party or agenda, or a religious affiliation can like, I said, do so to the extreme . . . And I’m not that way. I question everything.” For Sarah* and Jenny*, keeping politics private became a defense mechanism—protecting themselves while sustaining their online presence, consistent with ethnoreligious creators navigating visibility without diluting the potential risk of harm and harassment, within the ambiguity of the “algorithmic imaginary” (Bucher, 2017).

A third consideration shaping all strategies was practical and financial. As Jesse* explained, “they [brands] don’t want to hire someone that is controversial. And right now, being Jewish is controversial.” She continued,

It’s the toughest stage for me of identifying as a Jew on social media . . . Because it’s a time when Jewish people are not really received well, and so it comes with a lot of risk. It comes with the risk of like losing followers—which has already happened to me—comes with the risk of like not getting brand deals—which is definitely hurting my business right now.

Taken together, these strategies reflected a balancing act between authenticity, audience survival, and risk within algorithmic settings—additive labor incurred by ethnoreligious creators navigating biased platform systems (Arriagada and Ibáñez, 2020; Neff, 2015). As Annie* noted, alienating audiences with “gotcha” moments or partisan politics could undermine meaningful advocacy and education about antisemitism and Jewish history—work already challenged by Instagram’s technical and social barriers. The range of motivations underscores the complex socio-technical environment Jewish ethnoreligious creators faced in the aftermath—and endurance—of community crisis, as they attempted to navigate the ambiguity of the “algorithmic imaginary” to achieve their visibility goals (Bucher, 2017).

Expanded information sources and alliances

Jewish content creators continually endeavored to expand their algorithmic visibility, reach, and resonance with affective publics in a post–October 7th space (Papacharissi, 2014). However, a renewed ethos behind news source selection and the ongoing social and algorithmic struggle to reach non-Jewish audiences through collaboration hindered opportunities for out-group expansion. One central challenge emerged as creators tried to avoid partisan politics while still sharing advocacy and educational content: deciding what information sources were “okay” to share—meaning sources followers would actually read and consider, with awareness of the second-order algorithmic effects their choices carried for followers’ feeds.

Certain media outlets had long been “non-starters,” as Annie* described—sharing a Fox News article was previously unacceptable for her left-leaning followers. After October 7th, however, this calculus shifted. Media sources were no longer judged solely by partisan slant but by whether their coverage of Israel and the war was favorable or unfavorable. Jewish content creators generally found media coverage to be “biased,” as Abigail* put it, or at least “skewed,” as Beth* put it, against Israel—opening a window for sharing sources they had previously dismissed. As Abigail* admitted, being receptive to right-leaning content was “not on her bingo card” before October 7th. These shifts carried algorithmic consequences: algorithmic filtering meant that engaging with right-leaning content populated creators’ feeds with additional right-leaning material, and creators understood that their source choices impacted both their own feed proliferation and their followers’ consumption of sociopolitical information—contributing to their speculation around algorithmic imaginaries (Bucher, 2017).

Just as news-sharing practices widened, so too did the desire for cross-collaboration. Collaborations are key visibility tactics for ethnoreligious creators seeking to share information beyond their in-group (Divon and Ebbrecht-Hartmann, 2022), particularly for minority identities operating within platform systems biased toward hegemonic identities (Bhatia, 2022; Carlson and Frazer, 2020). Numerous interviewees pointed to the practical challenge that Jewish creators are vastly “outnumbered” by prominent pro-Palestinian accounts. Lara* called it a “numbers game”:

There’s only so many Jews in the world. And then you take like, how many of them are on the Internet. And then how many of them are like doing what I am doing [Israel and Jewish advocacy]? It’s a very small.

She contrasted this with pro-Palestinian model and influencer Bella Hadid, whose Instagram following exceeds 60 million, compared to just 15 million Jews worldwide. With fewer Jewish creators and smaller followings, interviewees stressed the need for cross-collaboration to wield the reach and visibility affordances of digital architecture and push content beyond, as Beth* put it, “our little Jewish algorithm”—collaborations that could also lower algorithmic and social barriers to reaching non-Jewish affective publics (Papacharissi, 2014).

Yet Lara* noted the difficulty of finding non-Jewish allies—particularly from progressive and liberal circles—willing to publicly support American Jews or Israel. Non-Jewish creators were perceived as reluctant to offer such support, as it could be interpreted as endorsing Israel—a position attracting heightened attention and risk within already precarious labor environments. Cross-collaboration within Jewish creator circles became the dominant tactic, though political fractures complicated even these efforts—something Lara* saw as inevitable within America’s highly polarized political system. Overcoming these social and political hurdles represented yet another form of additive labor for Jewish ethnoreligious creators (Arriagada and Ibáñez, 2020; Neff, 2015).

Within both shifts—toward selective sourcing and inward-facing collaboration—a common communicative logic emerged: retreating toward the strength of in-group networks as out-group sources and actors became socially and algorithmically more difficult to access. The post–October 7th environment fundamentally altered the motivations and accessibility behind both. Left- and center-leaning creators judged outlets not by partisan reputation alone but by their framing of the Israel–Hamas War, while cross-community collaboration—already structurally challenging—became further narrowed by the social and reputational risks of public Jewish or Israeli support. The result was a consolidation around Jewish networks, even as the stated goal remained outward reach and expansion.

Contested & collective solidarity

In this precarious social media environment, community solidarity was seen as the most effective way to reach intended affective publics (Papacharissi, 2014)—namely, non-Jewish audiences open to creators’ interpretations of October 7th, rising antisemitism, and the ongoing Israel–Hamas War. Crucially, though, what community solidarity meant in this endeavor proved different among interviewees. Most agreed with Aaron*’s fundamental sense that the online Jewish community holds a sense of “family” and “people” that discourages publicly calling out one another. Yet the strong sense of existential threat following October 7th altered these norms. Many felt it was every Jewish person’s obligation to speak up against antisemitism and defend Israel online. Jesse* elaborated on this newfound duty:

I feel obligated to post anything and everything that is positive about being a Jew, because it is now my duty to, you know, do everything I can to save this race of people from . . . subjugation and persecution.

This responsibility was seen as necessary both for Jewish affective publics—who needed hope and inspiration—and for non-Jewish affective publics to witness a strong, resilient Jewish community. While algorithmic visibility remained important, motivations for strategic action grounded in existential threat proved paramount.

The intensity of this activism was often described in militaristic terms. Jenny* called the work “the social media front is a war in itself, and we are, in a way, on the front lines exerting tons of energy—emotional energy—into the work that we’re doing.” Jesse* similarly framed her activity as a daily war: “I feel that I am part of fighting this war that happens every day. Whether I do it with . . . aggressive content, or . . . subtle, beautiful content. I’m gonna do it.” Characterizing their work as a “war” underscored platform labor’s severity and the sociopolitical weight creators felt obliged to convey. Several interviewees discussed travels to Israel to visit October 7th memorial sites, volunteer, or participate in educational institutes—experiences they felt imperative to share with Jewish and non-Jewish audiences alike, mirroring practices of war influencers who share on-the-ground reporting in highly personalized styles (Divon and Eriksson Krutrök, 2025). Unlike war influencers reporting from within conflict zones, however, these creators were geographically removed from the front lines, based in American contexts—though their travels to Israel to share first-person content with audiences back home meaningfully complicates that distinction.

In this high-pressure environment, expressing solidarity within Jewish networks was seen as key strategic engagement. Abigail* described her approach to Israeli politics: although she had long protested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she explained, “if there’s anybody that’s not pro-the-Israeli-Government it’s me. But am I gonna shut the fuck up now because we’re in a war? Yes, I’m gonna shut up.” Deciding not to publicly engage with Jewish voices they disagreed with was a conscious choice to maintain solidarity in algorithmic spaces—intra-community factions gone viral were seen as posing greater threats to collective activism efforts. Abigail* elaborated,

My analogy that I’m using is that my house is burning. My neighbor lit my house on fire . . . I have to save my house. I have to save my family . . . I can’t worry about the neighbor’s house that caught on fire as a result of my house . . . Do I want their house to go on fire, even if they caused it? No, I don’t, because I’m kind, and I have empathy, and I have humanity. But right now, I’m worried about my house and my family.

Others interpreted solidarity differently. Zachary* stressed,

We need to address it head-first, and like head-on, because what we’ve seen from the other communities—from the anti-Zionist community, anti-Israel community, anti-Jew community—they have a very hard time of taking accountability for their wrongdoings.

Naomi* echoed this, emphasizing balance:

Loving Israel is not supporting everything she does but fighting for her to be her best self. So, I like to beat up policies internally. But then, you know, I’m gonna protect her externally from all the fucking antisemites. Right? So, it’s that balance.

These diverging interpretations reflect a tension between ethnoreligious creators’ autonomous entrepreneurial labor and the demands of collective solidarity (Neff, 2015; Divon et al, 2026)—a friction characteristic of minority creator communities navigating crisis. While creators urged peers to keep disagreements private rather than public, championing WhatsApp as a space for dispute resolution—a meaningful shift in platform use that reflects strategic navigation of algorithmic environments (Bossetta, 2018; Bucher, 2017)—violations of this unofficial norm still occurred, as Abigail* noted with frustration toward creators who “went out of their way to express empathy for people that don’t have any empathy for us.”

Ultimately, beliefs about solidarity diverged widely—from active critique of U.S. and Israeli government actions to purposeful repression of such critique—manifesting as a key differing motivation for activism and political work online. Within a small, dense network of Jewish creators, these competing solidarity ethos risk deepening the very social and political divisions creators sought to overcome, undermining the coalition-building needed to combat adversarial algorithmic spaces. The tension between collective defense and individual communicative autonomy raises broader questions about contested solidarity within ethnoreligious content creator ecosystems—and the conditions under which crisis either unifies or fractures minority community networks online.