Hindutva groups flood social media with soft porn photos targeting Muslim women
New Delhi: Several Hindutva groups have flooded social media platforms with AI-generated semi-pornographic photos, videos and posts of Muslim women to target the community.
According to Kashmir Media Service, a report published in The Quint, hundreds of accounts and pages on Instagram and Facebook posted images of women in hijab or a burqa in intimate positions with Hindu men.
“We found that there are at least 250 such pages on Instagram, many of which use AI tools to make soft porn images of Muslim women. On Facebook, the nature of engagement is different, as such activity is mostly through a smaller number of pages but with thousands of followers,” reads the report written by Adity Menon for the news website.
According to the report, the ‘Muslimness’ of the women invariably is communicated through a burqa or a hijab and the ‘Hinduness’ of the men is often depicted through items like Rudraksh beads, Kalava on the wrist, Tilak or ash on the head and/or body, Hindu symbols as tattoos and saffron clothing which includes items like scarves and bandanas.
The pages and accounts use the term ‘Hijabi’ in their names, posts and hashtags to put Muslimness at the main target of their social media accounts.
While posting semi-pornographic images, the users also make lewd remarks about Muslim women. “Muslim women are sexually frustrated and they don a burqa to hide this”, reads the post shared widely on many accounts and pages.
Nabiya Khan, a Delhi-based poet and an activist who was put on auction through ‘Sulli deals’ in 2021, is among the Muslim women who shared such AI-generated images in a private message on X. “I have been receiving pornographic images of hijabi women in my Twitter DM ever since my follower count began growing. The people who send these messages threaten me that they can also morph my images if they want,” she said.
She wondered that while on the one hand, pro-Hindutva people support a ban on hijab and burqa in public spaces but in private spaces, some of them fetishise the garment. “There is a unique depravity in this thinking,” she added.
