Donald Trump supporters have been using a Google Chrome plugin called “Coincidence Detector” to compile and expose the identities of Jews online.
While the users are browsing the Internet through the Chrome browser, the extension encases the names of Jewish individuals listed on websites in three sets of parentheses—for instance, (((Fleishman)))—the news website Mic reported.
White supremacists had already been using the three-parentheses construction—which they call “(((echo)))”—to single out Jewish figures in media and entertainment for harassment online and on social media. “Coincidence Detector” received the top rating on a five-star scale in the Google Chrome store, with its description boasting that it “can help you detect total coincidences about who has been involved in certain political movements and media empires.”
According to CNN Money, the App Was Removed:
Google removed the Coincidence Detector extension from its Chrome store at 9:30 p.m. ET Thursday, a spokeswoman told CNNMoney. She said it violated the company’s hate speech policy, which doesn’t allow “content advocating against groups of people based on their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity.”
Before the Chrome plug-in was taken offline, it had been downloaded more than 2,400 times, according to Mic news. Google appears to have erased cached files of the website, so CNNMoney couldn’t access the page that contained the plug-in’s description on Friday.
Until the plugin was removed if a user thinks that the app has not labeled someone who is Jewish in this manner, the user can submit the person’s name to a centralized database using the plugin’s “Support” tab. But the plugin was removed from the Chrome store following Mic’s report. It was accessed by 2,473 users before being removed.
Coincidence Detector was uploaded to the Google Chrome store by “altrightmedia,” an allusion to a fringe conservative movement known for attracting supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
