India declared as largest source of Anti-Muslim tweets
India, the United States and the United Kingdom are responsible for the most anti-Muslim hate tweets in the world, according to a recent report by the Islamic Council of Victoria.
According to the survey, 871,379 Islamophobic tweets arrived from India between August 28, 2019 and August 27, 2021. The United States was responsible for 289,248 tweets and the United Kingdom for 196,376 tweets.
The report, entitled “Islamophobia in the digital age”, stresses that the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is responsible for spreading the anti-Muslim agenda in the country. Islamophobia has been a problem in the United States for several years. It deteriorated during the tenure of former President Donald Trump, who used racist, conspiratorial and incendiary rhetoric against Muslims. As for the UK, multiple factors have been responsible for the hatred against Muslims, including the international projection of Donald Trump’s Islamophobic speeches, anti-migrant sentiment in the UK and the casual racism of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The report adds that 3,759,180 Islamophobic tweets were posted on Twitter during the reporting period. After a year, only 14.8% of those tweets were deleted, while 85.2% of the total tweets are still there.
The three main themes of anti-Muslim tweets are linking Islam to terrorism, portraying Muslim men as sex offenders, and spreading fear that Muslims want to enforce Sharia law. Secondary issues include spreading the idea that Muslims aim to increase their population, the harassment of Muslim celebrities, and the characterization of halal meat as inhumane.
India declared as largest source of Anti-Muslim tweets
The report recommends punishing platforms that fail to tackle Islamophobia and pressuring India’s BJP-led government to drop its anti-Muslim agenda. He suggests that Twitter revise its policy of not filtering tweets, and it should automatically identify and remove hateful content against Muslims. The report also recommends that Twitter create an independent panel to assess the implementation of its moderation policies.
