Study: India generates more than 55% anti-Muslim content on Twitter

Monitoring Desk

NEW DELHI: A study by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) on Islamophobia has shown that the most anti-Muslim content on Twitter originates from India.

The ICV is a Muslim organisation based in Australia representing 270,000 community members which found that Indian Twitter generates 55.12% of Islamophobic content.

The study found that the comments of politicians can have a “considerable impact on the prevalence of Islamophobia”.

Three countries together were found to post 86% of the anti-Muslim remarks on the microblogging platform.

While the UN had warned last year that Islamophobia has reached “epidemic proportions” and encouraged the international community to fight the anti-Muslim hatred, platforms like Twitter have done little to remove such content.

The ICV found almost four million anti-Muslim posts made during this period and only 14.83% of the hate content was removed.

The study showed that content came mainly from the UK, the US, and India during the years 2017-2019.

India-based social media users blamed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the spread and amplification of discrimination and hate, according to TRT World.

The study also notes that former US president Donald Trump showed up quite frequently (third-most) in anti-Muslim posts. The UK’s islamophobia is also not limited to social media with casual remarks from former Prime Minister Boris Johnson where he compared niqab-wearing Muslim women to “letter boxes” being common.