More than 4.7 million Islamophobic social media posts targeted the Muslim community in the United States during 2025, a study by South Asian feminist organisation Equality Labs showed on Tuesday.
The organisation said that the 4.7 million posts it had identified had generated 34.8 million engagements, including likes, shares, comments, saves, taps and clicks on 12 social media platforms.
With approximately 279,000 posts, Texas was the leading US state for disinformation targeting Muslims during the year, the study found. It was followed by Florida with 150,000 posts and California 117,000.
Based on a sample set of 1,500 posts, the study identified the Muslim invasion theory, the imposition of Sharia law, calls to investigate Muslim organisations and leaders, and calls to deport Muslims among the 10 most prevalent themes.
The Muslim invasion theory is a far-right narrative in the US, which claims that the increase in Muslim population and immigration is a conspiracy to take over the country to undermine Christian values and American identity.
The study found that Islamophobic content was becoming increasingly widespread among officials of US President Donald Trump’s Republican party. The content frequently overlapped with anti-immigrant attacks, including calls to pause visas, denaturalise citizens and deport persons born outside the US.
Trump’s second term in office began in January 2025.
The study also found that the community’s civic engagement was increasingly being targeted, with harassment directed at Muslim candidates, voters and elected officials from the Republican and Democratic parties.
It added that “right-wing influencers” were deliberately provoking confrontations in public spaces to generate content that fuels further online harassment.
To tackle the problem, Equality Labs recommended defining all faith-based electoral disinformation as a civil rights and voter access issue, expanding disclosure requirements for funders, targeting and artificial intelligence-generated content in political advertisements and influencer-style content, and disrupting the funding and networks behind Islamophobic campaigns.
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