Cartoon by A.F. Branco / Creators.com
Fox News removed this A. F. Branco cartoon from its social media following accusations of anti-Semitism by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
According to The Daily Beast:
"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."
The cartoon of the 14 December of the conservative cartoonist A.F. Branco cartoon, published this week in the pages of the network, shows the liberal billionaire Soros - who has long been the bogeyman of the right - controlling local prosecutors and solicitors.
The Soros figure, pulling the strings of a puppet with the words"$ORO$", forces the other characters - depicted with the iconic Democratic donkey - to hold up signs reading "Defund Police" and "No Bail", a clear reference to right-wing complaints about progressive state and local criminal justice policies and Soros' alleged influence on them.
Fox News titled the cartoon "The Puppet Master" on its Instagram and Facebook pages. Before it was removed on Wednesday afternoon, the post on IG accumulated some 16,000 likes.
He called for the ADL on Twitter the "removal" of the cartoon:
"As we have told Fox News on numerous occasions, portraying a Jewish individual as a puppet master manipulating national events for evil purposes evokes longstanding anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish power + contributes to the normalization of anti-Semitism. This has to be eliminated".
Shortly after the ADL's tweet, Fox News deleted the posts with the cartoon from its Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Humour in trouble, a collection of cases (III)
Cases of cartoonists who have had problems of some importance because of their cartoons or satirical illustrations. There are also some stories of other people who, without being cartoonists, have got into trouble for sharing them.
