(Washington Post) Muslim candidates, including Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, endured torrents of hateful, xenophobic and threatening tweets during last year’s campaign season, much of it amplified through bots and other fake accounts, according to a study to be released Tuesday.
The study, by the Social Science Research Council, analyzed 113,000 Twitter messages directed at Muslim candidates. The tweets called the candidates “dogs” and “pieces of garbage” and accused them of marrying siblings, being terrorists and seeking to impose the values of a “demonic” faith on Americans.
The threats and verbal attacks flowed so heavily toward Omar (D-Minn.) — who came to the United States as a refugee from Somalia and has become a visible symbol of Muslim political aspirations — that the report categorized more [than] half of all accounts that mentioned Omar as “trolls” because they tweeted or retweeted hateful, Islamophobic or xenophobic content.
