Anti-South Asian online hate has escalated sharply across social media platforms and fringe forums, driven by generative artificial intelligence, incendiary political rhetoric and targeted harassment campaigns, according to a report released Monday by the Center for the Study of Online Hate (CSOH).
The study documented more than half a million hateful posts on X between January 2025 and June 2026. Monthly hate volume on the platform grew 75% during the study period and 240% since January 2024, with five of the six highest-volume months occurring between November 2025 and June 2026. On fringe platforms including 4chan, 8chan and Gab, researchers identified 397,522 hateful mentions in 2025 alone.
Posts portraying South Asians as invaders, job thieves and demographic threats accounted for 45% of anti-South Asian hate on X, with H-1B visas and immigration serving as primary drivers.
These narratives frequently invoked "Great Replacement" and "remigration" rhetoric, while fringe platforms overlapped with antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Dehumanizing language and slurs pervaded every platform analyzed. The slur "pajeet" and its variants appeared in 30% of all posts on X and 45% of mentions on fringe platforms. Hygiene-based dehumanization marked the fastest-growing category on X, surging 171%.
Researchers warned that generative AI is "industrializing visual hate," generating caricatures at unprecedented speed that depict South Asians as vermin, scammers and sexual predators.
Digital hostility has also moved directly into physical spaces. A network of X accounts routinely doxxes South Asians over alleged visa fraud or job competition, while right-wing influencers film harassment encounters at targets' homes and workplaces.
In Texas, influencers produced documentary-style videos framing local neighborhoods, businesses, and temples as evidence of a foreign "takeover."
South Asian public figures across party lines, including Republican politicians, faced coordinated attacks framing their civic participation as an invasive threat.
The report also detailed attacks on Hindu, Sikh and Muslim religious practices, calls to destroy temples and the weaponization of British grooming-gang cases into broad smears against all South Asians.
CSOH attributed the overall surge to six converging drivers: racist policies and incendiary rhetoric, xenophobic nationalism, racial hostility, growing South Asian political visibility, economic resentment and digital amplification.
"Anti-South Asian hate deliberately and intentionally targets the community; it is manufactured, it is articulated to provoke resentment, anger, panic, and outrage, it is strategically circulated, and it is amplified online," the report stated.
It also noted that digital hostility reinforces physical violence, citing a September incident in Wyoming where a Sikh truck driver was stabbed 17 times.
The researchers linked the rise in targeted hostility to federal policy decisions and rhetoric from the Trump administration.
On Feb. 5, 2025, 104 undocumented Indian nationals were deported to India. Data from Stop AAPI Hate cited in the report indicates South Asian deportations under the current administration rose roughly 14 times above levels recorded during the previous administration.
The report also highlighted policy shifts surrounding the H-1B visa program alongside inflammatory public statements. These include remarks by White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller accusing India of “cheating on immigration policies,” and statements by President Donald Trump referring to Indian immigrants as “gangsters with laptops.”
"Online hate does not exist in isolation from offline forms of hostility," the report warned, noting that digital algorithms and political discourse continue to reinforce real-world abuse.
