"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The coordinated campaign to cancel Sheeran has also been helped along by AI, with some platforms citing pro-Hamas/Hezbollah antisemitic groups that want to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews. Conspiracy Watch experiments conducted using the LLM Monitoring tool developed by Data Nation found that major AI models frequently failed to recognise documented episodes involving Macklemore as antisemitic, or equivocated when asked about them.
As the global movement to cancel Ed Sheeran snowballs, after stadium owner Robert Kraft informed the rock star that he would no longer allow American rapper Macklemore to appear as a support act, the affair has taken a more sinister turn. The argument over whether Macklemore should have been dropped from Sheeran's US tour has rapidly morphed into an opportunity for antisemitic influencers to rehash age-old conspiracy theories about Jewish money, Jewish power and shadowy Jewish control — all with the generous help of AI.
And of course the rancid blood libel is there too, with Jews smeared as murderers of children.
In his statement about the change to the concert tour line-up, Kraft said he "has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech."
"Based on Macklemore's recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran's shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line."
The original dispute began with Macklemore's appearances on Sheeran's Loop Tour. The rapper has repeatedly used concerts to promote his pro-Palestinian politics. In 2024, he released "Hind's Hall," celebrating the pro-Palestinian campus protest movement and explicitly supporting Students for Justice in Palestine.
Macklemore's songs like "Hind's Hall" celebrate violent pro-Hamas demonstrations. "Fucked Up" is rife with antisemitic clichés. Most notoriously, in 2014 Macklemore dressed up in "Jewface," appearing on stage wearing a black wig, beard and large hooked fake nose, an outfit widely condemned as an antisemitic caricature. Macklemore apologised at the time, saying that he had not intended to impersonate a Jewish person.
As antisemitism researcher Heidi Bachram noted: "Macklemore didn't just shout 'Free Palestine' at the Ed Sheeran concerts. He praised a violent encampment at Columbia University then dedicated a song to Students for Justice in Palestine. They called October 7 an 'historic win.'"
Macklemore's removal sparked a performative revolt, and radio stations including in Ireland banning Sheeran’s playlists while he lost hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. Sheeran's remaining support acts, including Finneas, Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe, withdrew, as did Beoga, the Irish band that had been backing Sheeran on stage.
But some of the language used to defend Macklemore quickly shifted beyond criticism of Kraft or support for Palestinian rights and directly into antisemitic conspiracy territory.
Beoga announced that it was leaving the tour because of what it called the "silencing of Macklemore by Zionist lobbies" — another antisemitic catchphrase made popular by the Soviets in their anti-Zionist campaigns and by the Nazis.
"It's important that everyone knows that the real enemy is the Zionist lobby," the band declared. "They have worked tirelessly to silence artists who want to speak freely about a genocide happening before our eyes, for fear of retribution."
Irish singer Aaron Rowe referred to the power of unnamed billionaires and child killings.
"I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israeli genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children."
Daniel Lambert is manager of the Irish rap group Kneecap, who played at the radical left Fête de l'Humanité this past weekend in France. They were recently questioned by police over terrorism apology concerns after they waved a Hezbollah flag and yelled "Up Hamas Up Hezbollah" at a London concert. In a post on X, Lambert channeled Joseph Goebbels, Lyndon LaRouche and Nick Fuentes all at once, ranting about "Jewish billionaires who control America and fund the IDF" deciding "who can and can't perform," before attacking the media for supposedly also being behind the whole operation.
"Jewish billionaires who control America" is not a criticism of the Israeli government. It is the language of a classic antisemitic conspiracy theory: a hidden Jewish financial elite controlling politics, culture and the media. The vocabulary changes remarkably little whether it comes from the extreme right or parts of the extreme left.
Fellow antisemitic influencers jumped on board.
Former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters, who brazenly performs with vile Jew-hating caricatures of pigs and stars of David, posted a video attacking Sheeran as a "little prick," contrasting him with Macklemore, whom Waters described as someone who "does the right thing."
Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal — a rabid spreader of antisemitic tropes, only recently returned from his summer sojourn in Tehran covering Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral at the invitation of the Mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards of the theocratic Islamist dictatorial regime — went after Kraft, claiming that the Jewish billionaire "runs a massive Zionist surveillance and propaganda center inside Gillette Stadium." The post was viewed almost 7 millions times.
What Blumenthal was referring to was Kraft's Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which monitors antisemitic hate online. In the conspiracist distortion, an organisation tracking antisemitism becomes a secretive "Zionist surveillance and propaganda center."
Blumenthal and his fellow travellers do not even justify their slippage into overt antisemitic conspiracy mongering. A decision by several privately owned stadiums and a tour promoter is reframed as evidence of an organised "Zionist lobby."
Unsurprisingly, Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian-American comedian known for his appearances with professional antisemites Candace Owens and Holocaust denier Dan Bilzerian, posted on Meta reels amid the Sheeran uproar, suggesting a shadowy group (of unnamed Jews) control the media and entertainment industry, sports and politics and methodically destroy the careers and money-making prospects of those who don't do their bidding.
Youssef promotes 9/11 Truther conspiracies about Israel and has falsely accused Mossad of orchestrating ‘false flag’ attacks by al-Qaida on America on September 11, 2001 and the Bondi Beach Islamist terrorist attack in Sydney in December 2025, as well as the October 27, 2023 Hamas attacks, as reported by Conspiracy Watch.
That lobby now inexplicably includes Sheeran who in viral social media posts has been depicted in illustrations with blood on his hands and as a killer with a rocket launcher pointed at a small Palestinian child, shown wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a Star of David, and portrayed massaging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
HOW IS THERE NO RUNNER FOR THIS
Ed Sheeran is #1 Trending in the USA for supporting Netanyahu and now everyone is making Jew memes of him LMAO
300M views in 1 day across posts!!
So many memes this is giga -https://t.co/5ukSW5fAMd pic.twitter.com/pbGXnEJst9
— petal (@PetaIS0L) September 16, 2026
The coordinated campaign to cancel Sheeran has also been helped along by AI, with some platforms citing notoriously pro-Hamas and Hezbollah Jew-gating groups that want to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews like the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Experiments conducted using the LLM Monitoring tool developed by Data Nation found that major AI models frequently failed to recognise documented episodes involving Macklemore as antisemitic, or equivocated when asked about them.
Conspiracy Watch tested a version with 5 questions on antisemitic incidents involving Macklemore on 7 LLMs. All frequently failed to identify known antisemitic episodes involving Macklemore. Some even struggled to deem his 2014 ‘Jewface’ costume of a man with a hooked nose, a bear and a Nazi salute as antisemitic, calling the question "complex" (Gemini). They also frequently deny his "Fucked Up" song/video and "Hind's Hall" performance were antisemitic.
When asked related questions, Perplexity Sonar discouraged users concerned with social justice from buying tickets to Sheeran concerts and cited the official website of the BDS movement as a source.
AI systems are not describing the Sheeran/Macklemore/Kraft affair. In some cases they are reproducing the framing of one side of it - and the echoes are heard across social media.
As Irish Jewish writer Rachel Moiselle put it: "Ask yourself this: would you tolerate someone who did Blackface this way and give him every benefit of the doubt while the Black community are telling you he is racist? No? Then why are your standards different for Jews?
"I don't think anyone should be de-platformed for their political beliefs. Separately, I do believe Macklemore is an antisemite, and Jews who don't want to see an antisemite at an Ed Sheeran concert shouldn't be scoffed at, even if we may disagree about him being de-platformed."
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