Anti-Muslim posts on X about Zohran Mamdani have increased by more than 450 percent

As the gap between New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani and his chief opponent Andrew Cuomo narrowed over the past month, more anti-Muslim, anti-Mamdani posts have emerged on X, leading to more than a 450 percent increase in such content from September to October, a new report shows.

The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) revealed in a 20-page document on Monday that Islamophobic and xenophobic discourse surrounding Mamdani on X had a reach of some 1.5 billion between his Democratic primary win in June and the end of October. 

The content stemmed from 35,522 original posts, authored by 17,752 unique accounts on X. 

The organisation is now calling on the platform to implement election-specific safeguards, enforce community guidelines against attacks on race and religion, and enhance corrective counterarguments in its algorithm. 

Forty-five percent of all the posts the study looked at were authored by verified blue badge users, usually meaning they are paid subscribers of the platform. However, this is not always the case, given that tens of thousands of accounts with blue checkmarks have long been suspected of being bots. 

There were four Islamophobic themes used to discredit Mamdani, CSOH found.

"Terrorist labeling" was the most dominant narrative, making up 72 percent of all original posts, and "reflecting persistent efforts to conflate Muslim identity with extremism".

"By repeatedly framing Mamdani in the context of terrorism, these posts questioned his legitimacy as a political actor and, by extension, cast suspicion on Muslim participation in democratic life," the report says. 

'Fear-based political weapon'

Another 11 percent of posts called for Mamdani’s deportation and revocation of his citizenship.

At least one member of Congress has used X to push that message and even demand that the Department of Justice open an investigation into Mamdani's citizenship. 

Nine percent of posts questioned Mamdani's loyalty to the country, using terms like "anti-American" and "enemy within". 

The phrase “New York has fallen”, in particular, appeared in multiple posts, "serving as a rallying cry for those who view Muslim participation in public life as a form of national betrayal", the report says.

Finally, eight percent of posts perpetuated "Sharia law" and "Muslim takeover" conspiracies. 

Though that final category had just over 2,100 unique authors, it had a reach of more than 155 million users, which illustrates the scale and potential impact. 

The idea that New York City would fall under "'Islamic rule'... functioned as a fear-based political weapon", the report says. "It suggested that Mamdani’s candidacy symbolised the loss of American or Western cultural dominance, echoing far-right movements in Europe and the UK". 

Safeguards

CSOH warns that "online hate and dehumanisation" may very well manifest as "offline violence", especially as "overt anti-Muslim sentiment [has] surged in the US". 

The organisation points to recent acts of political violence that include the shootings of Minnesota Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and the right-wing political activist, Charlie Kirk. 

As such, its list of recommendations for X urges an enforcement of the platform's own rules in its "Hateful Conduct" policy: Users should be prevented from directly attacking other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease, the report says. 

X should also implement stronger moderation and transparency mechanisms for verified users, CSOH says, and remove their premium privileges if they post hate-based content.

Those who are responsible for "multiple violations in quick succession" should "face graduated friction", with something like a "read before you share" factbox pop-up. 

"When a post containing high-risk keywords crosses a predefined engagement threshold, platforms should automatically insert an interstitial context card. The card could provide concise background facts, links to authoritative sources, and an option to 'share anyway,'" the report says. 

Perhaps most importantly, given the way it dictates what users see, the algorithm should boost corrective counterarguments and "expose users to balanced information at a moment when false or hateful claims gain traction", CSOH suggests, adding that X's built-in "Community Notes" feature should also be expanded.