US Muslim body demands action on Indian AI bots fueling anti-Muslim hate

Washington: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, has urgently called on social media companies to take immediate action against Indian Hindutva groups who are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and bot networks to spread anti-Muslim hate and incite violence online.

CAIR’s statement follows a damning report by the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organised Hate (CSOH), which uncovered a systematic campaign involving over 1,300 AI-generated images and videos promoting anti-Muslim bigotry circulating on Indian social media . This synthetic content has generated a staggering more than 27 million engagements across major platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram .

“The sexualization of Muslim women, exclusionary and dehumanizing rhetoric, conspiratorial narratives, and the aestheticization of violence” were identified as the four primary categories of this AI-fueled digital hate . Co-researcher Nabiya Khan explained that AI acts as an “amplifier,” making old prejudices “faster and cheaper, and even harder to trace,” while noting that existing laws are insufficient to regulate this content .

“Social media companies must take concrete action to crack down on anti-Muslim bot accounts in India using AI to promote real-world violence against Indian Muslims,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s Deputy Executive Director. “Fake campaigns like this can and have led to real violence against various communities” .

The CSOH report detailed that the most engaged-with category was the sexualized depiction of Muslim women, which garnered 6.7 million interactions, fusing misogyny with anti-Muslim hate. AI tools are also being used to visually bolster dangerous conspiracy theories like “love jihad” and “population jihad,” framing Muslims as a coordinated demographic and security threat.

This alarming development occurs in a context where India’s religious minorities, particularly Muslims, already face systemic discrimination and violence . The report warns that the unchecked proliferation of such AI-generated hate poses a grave threat to the safety of minorities, risks further social fragmentation, and contributes to the erosion of democratic institutions in India.