Washington, DC (January 9, 2025) —The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) has released a new report titled “Anti-Indian Hate on X: How the Platform Amplifies Racism and Xenophobia” highlighting a troubling surge in anti-Indian racism and xenophobia on X (formerly Twitter), sparked by appointment of Indian-origin technologist Sriram Krishnan as an adviser to the incoming Trump administration on Artificial Intelligence.
The backlash was compounded by Vivek Ramaswamy’s X post on December 26, which criticized ‘normal’ American culture with that of “foreign-born” engineers, labeling the former ‘mediocre,’ inaugurating a firestorm of posts in response. Ramaswamy was appointed by President-elect Donald Trump, alongside Elon Musk, to lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency aimed at reducing government waste.
Krishnan’s prominence and his call for reform to ease the path of skilled immigrants on H-1B visas for green cards and citizenship further added fuel to the fire.
The backlash, which unfolded between December 22, 2024, and January 3, 2025, involved widespread dissemination of hateful, racist and xenophobic content, much of which violated X’s content policies on hateful conduct. Notably, these attacks were not exclusively aimed at Hindus of Indian or American origin but extended to all those perceived as being of Indian descent, including Sikh community members, as revealed in CSOH’s analysis.
Key Findings
- CSOH documented and analyzed 128 X posts targeted at Indians broadly within the Western context.
- All posts in our dataset received a total of 138.54M views on X as of January 3, 2025. 36 posts received over a million views, 12 of which claimed Indians to be demographic threat to white America.
- 64 of the 85 X accounts documented in our dataset are subscribed to X Premium and display a blue badge on their profiles.
- The posts were in violation of X’s policies on Hateful Conduct. Violations included Incitement through ‘inciting fear or spreading fearful stereotypes about a protected category,’ slurs and tropes, and dehumanization.
- As of January 3, 2025, 125 posts in our sample remain active. 8 posts have been marked as sensitive and 1 post remains active with limited visibility due to potential violation of X’s rules against Hateful Conduct.
- Only 1 of 85 accounts in our database has been suspended by X.
The racist and xenophobic X campaign drew on long-standing stereotypes against immigrants and people of Indian origin. Posts combined broad anti-immigrant rhetoric with specific racist tropes, including depictions of Indians as “job thieves” and abusers of the H-1B visa system. They also employed dehumanizing stereotypes portraying Indians as “unhygienic,” “uncivilized,” “inherently inferior,” a threat to white nationhood, and invaders contributing to the demographic threat. The campaign involved personal attacks, including the targeting and doxxing of Indian members and family members associated with the Trump’s team.
“X has become a free-for-all cesspit of hatred that disproportionately harms minorities. The argument that X is simply abiding by the principles of free speech does not hold water when an overwhelming proportion of speech systematically targets specific groups—not just drowning out their voices or verbally abusing them, but possibly exposing them to physical risk and threat,” the report states.
The report emphasizes the critical need for policy enforcement, proactive monitoring, and stakeholder engagement to curb the proliferation of anti-Indian hate on X.
Key recommendations include the recognition of racial slurs targeting Indian and South Asian communities, along with consistent updates to content moderation policies to address emerging hateful terminologies. The establishment of a new Advisory Council, following the dissolution of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, would help provide expert oversight and actionable recommendations on hate speech trends.
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