New York: After Donald Trump picked Indian origin Sriram Krishnan as his advisor on artificial intelligence, racism and xenophobia against Indians surged on platform X, study a study.
Washington DC-based think tank Center for the Study of Organized Hate in a report released on Thursday found that 128 posts it analyzed targeting Indians gained 138.54 million views till January 3, Scroll reported.
Twelve of the 36 posts, with each surpassing a million views, labelled Indians a demographic threat to ‘white America’.
Sixty four of the 85 accounts that posted such content had a blue tick showing they were subscribed to X premium.
The social media platform reportedly failed to act adequately despite posts analysied by the think tank violated the platform’s content policies on hateful conduct.
It is reported citing the finding that 125 posts were still active as of January 3, with one having rendered with limited visibility probably due to violating content policy; it means that the platform suspended only one of the 85 posts.
Meanwhile, the Center for the Study of Organized Hate pointed out that claiming such racial targeting as ‘Hinduphobic’was unfounded, adding that calling such 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’.
The report pointed out that hate got intensified after Indian-origin Republican leader Vivek Ramaswamy posted on X explaining why companies choose to hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans.
He pointed out it was because ‘American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long’, further arguing that ‘A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.’
Trump picked Ramaswamy to lead along with Elon Musk the proposed Department of Government Efficiency.
More important, Krishnan’s push to simplify and reform H-1B visa process in order to help skilled visa holders to get green cards and citizenship intensified the row.
It is pointed that Indians make up 72.3 percent gaining the H-1B visas issued by the US in 2023.
Meanwhile Trump claimed that ‘I have many H-1B visas on my properties,’ adding ‘I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great programme.’