KEY POINTS:
- Study analysed 1,300 AI-generated posts from 297 extremist accounts.
- Platforms studied included X, Facebook, and Instagram from 2023–2025.
- Spike in AI hate content observed from mid-2024 onward.
- Small verified accounts generated 27.3 million engagements online.
- Instagram emerged as the most potent amplifier of AI hate.
- Far-right outlets like OpIndia, Sudarshan News, Panchjanya amplified content.
- Themes include conspiracies, sexualised imagery, de-humanisation, and aestheticized violence.
- Sexualised content of Muslim women garnered highest engagement, 6.7 million.
- Platforms removed only one of 187 posts violating hate rules.
- CSOH urges legal frameworks, media transparency, and cross-platform moderation.
ISLAMABAD: A ground-breaking report has revealed the systematic use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to produce, amplify, and mainstream anti-Muslim content across India’s digital ecosystem, exposing a disturbing convergence of technology, majoritarian politics, and mainstream media complicity.
The study titled “AI-Generated Imagery and the New Frontier of Islamophobia in India,” conducted by the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) analysed over 1,300 AI-generated images and videos from 297 extremist accounts on platforms including X, Facebook, and Instagram, spanning May 2023 to May 2025.
The report paints a grim picture of how generative AI tools are being weaponised to de-humanise, sexualise, and incite violence against India’s approximately 200-million-strong Muslim population at an unprecedented scale and sophistication.
The scale and engine of digital hatred
The research highlights a sharp spike in AI-generated hate content from mid-2024, coinciding with the growing availability of tools like DALL-E and MidJourney. A small network of accounts — many of them verified — played a disproportionate role in pushing this content into the digital mainstream, collectively generating 27.3 million engagements. While Instagram hosted fewer posts overall, it emerged as the most potent amplifier.
The report emphasises the central role of established Hindu far-right media outlets in giving credibility and massive reach to this synthetic hate. Outlets such as OpIndia, Sudarshan News, and Panchjanya — the latter affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — are cited as key actors in embedding AI-generated Islamophobia into mainstream discourse.
Thematic blueprints of de-humanisation
The CSOH report categorises the AI-generated content into four dominant, overlapping themes:
- Conspiratorial Narratives: AI imagery visually reinforces baseless conspiracy theories, including “Love Jihad,” “Population Jihad,” and “Rail Jihad.” Muslims are depicted as secretly plotting to seduce, outbreed, or sabotage the Hindu majority and the Indian state. Non-sectarian tragedies — like a teen killed over mango theft or a railway accident — are repackaged with AI imagery to fabricate sectarian motives, portraying Muslim men as inherently violent.
- Exclusionary and dehumanising rhetoric: Imagery strips Muslims of humanity, often depicting them as snakes wearing skullcaps, a metaphor for being “deceptive, venomous, and deserving of extermination.” Other posts criminalise Islamic dress, claim the burqa facilitates crime and jihad, or portray Muslims as infiltrators and demographic threats, echoing rhetoric used by senior BJP leaders.
- Sexualisation of Muslim women: This category received the highest engagement — 6.7 million interactions — and fuses misogyny with Islamophobia. AI-generated pornographic or suggestive imagery targets women in hijabs and burqas, often with Hindu-coded men, framing them as “spoils of conquest.” The report links this to a continuum of real-world harassment, including “Sulli Deals” and “Bulli Bai” apps, which auctioned Muslim women online.
- Aestheticisation of violence: AI is used to render historical and contemporary anti-Muslim violence in palatable or celebratory visual styles. Examples include Ghibli-style animations of the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, and AI recreations of police violence against Muslims at prayer. These stylised depictions blur reality and fiction, desensitising audiences to brutality.
Mainstream media as force multipliers
CSOH documents the complicity of major Hindu nationalist media networks. OpIndia editor Nupur J. Sharma shared AI-generated images labelling Muslims as “mentally unstable by virtue of doctrinal barbarity.” Sudarshan News used AI-generated thumbnails to fabricate evidence, depicting a Muslim man with an axe near a train to “prove” Rail Jihad. Panchjanya published AI-generated images of Muslim men gathering stones on mosque terraces, implying imminent attacks on Hindus.
The report warns that the spread of hate is not limited to fringe accounts but is actively embedded into mainstream discourse, magnifying its reach and impact.
Systemic platform failures
The CSOH audit found 187 posts that clearly violated social media hate speech and incitement policies, yet only one post was removed. Platforms’ inaction enables AI-generated “slopaganda” to saturate the information environment, normalising propaganda once difficult to produce.
Broader implications and recommendations
The report concludes that the weaponisation of AI is accelerating the dehumanisation of Muslims in India, corroding constitutional protections for minorities and weakening democratic institutions. With the spread of low-cost AI subscriptions like ChatGPT in India, the report warns that the volume of such content is poised to rise exponentially.
CSOH recommends:
- Implementing new Indian legal frameworks regulating AI-generated content.
- Enforcing mandatory provenance metadata from AI developers to trace synthetic content.
- Introducing stricter guidelines and disclosure rules for media houses using AI imagery.
- Improving platform content moderation, including algorithmic audits.
- Establishing cross-platform collaboration to detect and disrupt synthetic hate campaigns.
The report presents a stark indictment of how advanced technology is being harnessed to fuel age-old prejudices, with mainstream institutions complicit in spreading AI-driven Islamophobia. It warns that India’s digital sphere is increasingly colonised by synthetic hate, with profound consequences for social cohesion and the safety of its largest minority community.
