Sharp rise in Hinduphobia on social media and other messaging platforms, claims US university report

Hate speech directed towards the Hindu community has increased significantly across social media platforms, Rutgers University said in its latest report.

NCRI’s latest paper on “Anti-Hindu Disinformation: A Case Study of Hinduphobia on Social Media.” was released today on KQED/NPR

Rutgers Press Release:https://t.co/BXld0kRBJc

KQED report:https://t.co/9pyh27Iv1B

A on our findings:@prasiddhaa_ @parthparihar @rachaelmyrow

— Network Contagion Research Institute (@ncri_io) July 13, 2022

The report titled: ‘Anti-Hindu Disinformation: A Case Study of Hinduphobia on Social Media’ talks about the patterns in which hate against the Hindu community is being spread.

Speaking to Times Now, Dr Joel Finkelstein, associated with the Rutgers University, said that the analysis showed that the hate directed towards the Hindu community has been growing largely unrecognised for the past several years on social media.

Not all (anti-Hindu) tweets are from Pakistan. We noticed there are state-sponsored information operations from Iran and other countries, Finkelstein informed Times Now.

The report said, "In July the signal on the Hinduphobic code words and memes reached record highs that could inflame a spill out to real world violence, especially in light of escalating religious tensions in India and the recent beheading of an Indian shopkeeper."

"In July the signal on the Hinduphobic code words and memes reached record highs that could inflame a spill out to real world violence, especially in light of escalating religious tensions in India and the recent beheading of an Indian shopkeeper. Social media platforms largely are unaware of the code words, key images, and structured nature of this hatred even as it is surging," the report stated.

“There is, unfortunately, nothing new to the bigotry and violence faced by the Hindu population,” said John J. Farmer Jr., director of both the Miller Center and the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. “What is new is the social media context in which hate messages are being shared. Our prior work has shown a correlation between the intensity of hate messaging over social media and the eruption of real-world acts of violence.”

“Our hope is that the report serves as a timely warning before the hate messaging leads to real-world violence,” said Denver Riggleman, former U.S. congressman and Miller Center Research fellow and visiting scholar.

As per the Rutgurs website, the analysis follows a series of reports that NCRI and Rutgers Centers have released since 2020 that examine the use of conspiracy theories and social media networks to instigate widespread, real-world violence. The NC Lab is a cyber-social threat identification and forecasting center developed through a partnership between the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), the Rutgers Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience and the Rutgers Center for Critical Intelligence Studies. The NC Lab’s next report, expected in August, will focus on reciprocal radicalization.