Islamophobic Disinformation Surged Online Following Mamdani’s Win

More than 1.15 million social media posts targeting Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, contained Islamophobic content, with a reach exceeding 150 billion users. Another 1.43 million posts falsely labeled him a communist, generating a reach of 292 billion. Overall, over 17.1 million posts concerning Mamdani have circulated across social media platforms in 2025, a recent study reveals.

The 89-page study, titled Tracing Online Hate Against Zohran Mamdani, released by the U.S.-based anti-caste civil rights coalition Equality Labs, revealed that among 500 manually reviewed posts from 12 different platforms published between June 2025—following Mamdani’s mayoral primary win—and the end of October, about 81 percent included Islamophobic content, while nearly one-fourth contained anti-Semitic or “pro-Hamas” tags.

The report highlighted that these hate campaigns, combining Islamophobia, xenophobia, and ideological attacks, are deliberately orchestrated to discredit candidates of color and movements advocating for working-class politics and right-wing ideologies both in the United States and globally.

Who is Zohran Mamdani, the Recently Elected Mayor of New York City?

Zohran Mamdani, 34, is the son of Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani, who has Gujarati roots, and renowned filmmaker Mira Nair. He was born in Kampala and moved to New York when he was seven years old.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College in Maine. Before pursuing a political career, he worked as a housing counselor, helping low-income families avoid eviction.

In the 2020 New York State Assembly election, Mamdani won the seat for the 36th District, representing Astoria, Queens.

Zohran Mamdani identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He has campaigned on a platform promising rent freezes in New York, free bus rides, free child care, increased funding for public schools, establishing city-owned and price-controlled grocery stores, protecting LGBTQIA+ rights, increasing corporate taxes, and defending immigrant rights.

Mamdani’s campaign focused on making the United States’ most expensive city more affordable for its residents—not just in terms of housing, but across all aspects of daily life. His bold, progressive agenda centered on wealth redistribution, expanding public services, and reimagining urban life.

To fund these initiatives, Mamdani has proposed sweeping tax reforms — including increasing the corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5% and introducing a 2% surcharge on individuals earning over $1 million annually. His campaign estimates that these measures could yield up to $9.4 billion in revenue each year.

Besides, a Marist poll conducted earlier this year showed that Mamdani has gained substantial backing from New York’s Hispanic and Latino communities. This surge in support came as Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intensified raids in Democratic-led cities, with many viewed Mamdani as the candidate best positioned to challenge the president’s aggressive mass deportation agenda.

He described ICE as “fascist” following the arrest of fellow mayoral candidate Brad Lander last June, stating: “If this is what ICE is willing to do to a comptroller of the city of New York, imagine what they are willing to do to immigrants whose names you don’t even know.”

Mamdani’s Views on the Israel-Gaza war

Mamdani has stated that he believes Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza, operates as an apartheid state, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should face arrest. 

He has also been a vocal advocate of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Speaking at an event in Manhattan in October 2024, he described his support for it as rooted in “the core of my politics, which is non-violence.”

Mamdani has also declined to disavow the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” a phrase that many Jewish leaders and conservative commentators have condemned as inflammatory and anti-Semitic.

Addressing questions about the slogan in a June 2025 episode of The Bulwark podcast, Mamdani said, “As a Muslim man who grew up post‑9/11, I’m all too familiar [with] the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.” He explained that the phrase was meant to express solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world — not to incite violence.

Cuomo’s campaign also seized on Mamdani’s Muslim identity and his pro-Palestinian stance, accusing him of anti-Semitism. New York City—home to the United Nations headquarters—hosts the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel.

Mamdani stated, “There is no place for anti-Semitism in this city or country.” He has consistently emphasized that his criticism targets the policies of the U.S. and Israeli governments—not Jewish people.

Meanwhile, in a June 2025 interview on CBS’s The Late Show alongside fellow candidate Brad Lander, Mamdani was confronted by Stephen Colbert over his opinions on Gaza and the Palestinian cause. 

“Does the state of Israel have the right to exist?” the host asked him. “Yes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist – and a responsibility also to uphold international law,” he answered.

Islamophobia Targeting Mamdani

The study also tracks Islamophobia, xenophobia, red-baiting/anti-working class rhetoric, and anti-South Asian hate speech directed at Mamdani in U.S. social media posts.

The central theme of the ‘Muslim invasion’ trope is rooted in post‑9/11 right-wing ideologies, the report says. “It frames Muslim New Yorkers as perpetual outsiders and casts candidates like Mamdani as symbols of demographic or cultural takeover rather than democratic representation … The effect is to launder bigotry as public concern, substituting insinuation and fear for facts and policy debate, and to normalize Islamophobic tropes in mainstream discourse.”

The report found that 25.3% of the manually tracked posts labelled Mamdani as “pro-Hamas” or anti-Semitic, while 23.8% referred to him as a communist or “socialist extremist.”

Equality Labs uncovered a total of 1.62 million red-baiting posts with more than 330.2 billion user impressions.

“Calling someone a communist in this context is not a good-faith critique of a stated platform. It is a catch-all slur meant to cast pro–working-class policies as inherently illegitimate and to collapse nuanced positions into a caricature of extremism,” the report says.

Furthermore, 7.2% of the manually tracked posts characterized Mamdani as a “terrorist,” 5.4% called for him to be deported or denaturalized as a U.S. citizen, and 2.4% showed anti-immigrant sentiments, while 9% of the posts called Mamdani “anti-Hindu,” the report says.

Republicans, X Accused of Spreading Racism, Islamophobia in Posts about NYC's Mamdani

Anti-Muslim online posts targeting Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset last June, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Of the manually monitored posts, 80.8% were found to be Islamophobic, portraying Mamdani as a “Muslim invader and a threat to American culture,” with many drawing upon post-9/11 right-wing narratives that cast Muslim New Yorkers as outsiders, these portrayals being linked to broader ideological currents that sought to replace policy debate with insinuation and fear.

President Trump has attempted to portray Mamdani as a radical, frequently labeling him a communist — a characterization Mamdani has consistently rejected. Trump has also threatened to cut off federal funding to the Mamdani administration.

“We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous,” Trump wrote. “He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart, he’s got AOC+3, Dummies ALL backing him, and even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him.”

Donald Trump Jr, the president's son, wrote on X last June that "New York City has fallen" while sharing a post that said New Yorkers had "voted for" 9/11.

Equality Labs report stated that 45 Republican officials from 18 U.S. states and 26 foreign politicians from 14 countries were involved in spreading hate-driven narratives. The organization noted that Mamdani has become a major target of global right-wing networks due to his outspoken criticism of Israel and the Indian government.

He attracted persistent scrutiny from right-wing figures worldwide, according to the report, which noted that at least 26 foreign politicians, ambassadors, and government officials have publicly spoken out against him. These figures came from 14 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, the Netherlands, India, Israel, Slovenia, Sweden, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

“Mamdani became a global lightning rod because Islamophobia, xenophobia, and red‑baiting are now transnational staples of right‑wing politics. These narratives travel easily across borders, fuelling coordinated smear campaigns,” the report says.

Furthermore, the report highlights targeted disinformation campaigns that “reframe routine, constitutionally protected civic engagement as a ‘Soros’ terrorist plot.”

Congressman Randy Fine even went so far as to baselessly claim that Mamdani would establish a “caliphate” in New York City if elected, while Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a cartoon on X depicting the Statue of Liberty wearing a burqa.

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk referenced the 9/11 attacks and labeled Mamdani a “Muslim Maoist,” while right-wing commentator Angie Wong told CNN that New Yorkers are “concerned about their safety, living here with a Muslim mayor.”

Far-right activist and Trump ally Laura Loomer labeled the mayoral candidate a “jihadist Muslim,” falsely claiming he has connections to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Republican Representative Andy Ogles sent a letter to the Department of Justice urging that Mamdani’s citizenship be revoked and that he be deported, “He needs to be DEPORTED. Which is why I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalization proceedings,” said Ogles, who referred to Mamdani as "little Muhammad."

Moreover, Congressman Brandon Gill shared a video of Mamdani eating biryani with his hand, telling him to “go back to the Third World” and claiming that “civilized people” in the U.S. “don’t eat like this.”

Islamophobic Disinformation Surges Online Targeting Muslims

A recent report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) found a significant surge in online hate speech and Islamophobic content following Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary. The study examined patterns of digital hate both before and after the election.

Raqib Hameed Naik, executive director of CSOH, said that “we found a huge spike in online hate and fear-mongering targeting Muslims in the aftermath of Mamdani’s primary win, blending racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, red-baiting, and anti-immigrant sentiment into one dangerous narrative.”

“Muslims were portrayed as threats to national security, incompatible with democracy, or as agents of an imagined foreign agenda,” he added.

While social media platforms have made limited attempts to curb disinformation, the report indicates that these measures fall short of tackling spikes like the one seen after Mamdani’s victory. 

Kayla Bassett, the Director of Research at CSOH, says that “tech companies, historically, ebb and flow in terms of their willingness to address content that's on their platforms, and most recently this year, I think we've seen a downturn in [their] appetite to moderate content.” 

Read More

The Massive Comet Observed by NASA Is Not on Its Way to Earth

Video Claiming to Show Clearest Mars Image Is AI-Generated