AI-generated images fuelling hate against Muslims in India, says US thinktank report

A heavily-bearded Muslim man smiles wickedly at the terrified woman next to him. A muscular man in a saffron dhoti walks in the rain carrying a young woman wearing a headscarf. A man in a skullcap wields a knife below a sign that reads “Abdul beef shop” while cows weep outside.

Images like these generated by artificial intelligence tools, featuring stereotypical Muslim men with exaggerated evil features and sexualised Muslim women, are being widely circulated on major social media platforms in India. They are being used to illustrate Hindutva conspiracy theories or bolster hateful narratives about Muslims in the country.

While the use of social media to spread hate about minorities in India has been widely documented, the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence tools that makes it much easier to produce such images could boost the spread of Islamophobic messages and misinformation, warns a report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, an American thinktank, released on September 29.

Researchers analysed 1,326 publicly available AI-generated images and videos posted by 297 public accounts in Hindi and English across X (as Twitter is now called), Facebook and Instagram from May 2023 to May 2025.

“As ChatGPT seeks to access the potentially vast Indian market by offering an inexpensive subscription plan...

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