Racism and xenophobia against Indians surged on social media platform X after Sriram Krishnan, an technology expert of Indian origin was named United States President-elect Donald Trump’s advisor on artificial intelligence, according to a report by Washington DC-based think tank Center for the Study of Organized Hate released on Thursday.
The study analysed 128 posts targeting Indians on the platform between December 22 and January 3, which garnered 138.54 million views till January 3. It found that 36 posts surpassed a million views each, with 12 labeling Indians as a demographic threat to “white America”.
It also found that of the 85 accounts that posted such content, 64 had a blue tick – signifying they were subscribed to X premium.
The study said the posts that were analysed violated X’s content policies on hateful conduct. Despite this, the social media platform did not adequately act against such posts, it noted.
As of January 3, 125 posts were still active, eight were marked as sensitive, and one was limited in visibility due to a potential violation of content policy. Only one of the 85 accounts was suspended by the platform.
The report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, however, emphasised that the claim that such racial targeting was “Hinduphobic” was unfounded. “To define these attacks as ‘Hinduphobic’ merely echoes the Hindu nationalist credo that Indian identity is synonymous with Hindu identity and that non-Hindus are not really Indian,” it said.
The report also found that the online hate further intensified after Indian-origin Republican leader Vivek Ramaswamy’s post on X where he claimed that technology companies prefer to hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers over “native” Americans because “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long”.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy argued in the post on December 26.
Ramaswamy has been appointed by Trump alongside Elon Musk to lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency –- aimed at restructuring the federal government to increase efficiency.
Krishnan's growing prominence and his push for reform to simplify the path for skilled H-1B visa holders to obtain green cards and citizenship further fueled the controversy.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows companies in the United States to temporarily employ foreign workers for special occupations.
In the past few years, Indians have constituted the majority of H-1B visa holders in the United States. Indians comprised 72.3% of all H-1B visas issued by the United States in fiscal year 2023.
Trump and Musk have both in recent days publicly claimed that they have always been in favour of H-1B short-term visas.
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties,” Trump said in December. “I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great programme.”
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