A factually distorted anti-jihad meme spread over fifty thousand times online

Evidence

The creator of the meme did this for every verse in the meme. Despite these textual fallacies, this meme was shared more than 50,000 times on Facebook alone. — Asena Karipek, Portrayals of Jihad, 46

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels virality-versus-accuracy dynamics documented in misinformation and rumor research. — connects to: There is no shortage of jihad misrepresentations on social media. In February 2019, a meme featuring a handful of distorted translations of Qur’anic verses (including verses about jihad) along with a picture of Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota began circulating on the internet. The writer of the meme took his translations from a post on a website called Islam Watch, started by six former Muslims who ‘felt it incumbent upon [them] to make the non-Muslim world aware of the reality of Islam, and undertake timely precautionary measures against this religion of terror, hatred and mayhem.’ Those translations are not from a scholar of Islam. They are not even translations. Rather, they are interpretations of the verses from the writer of that Islam Watch post, who describes himself as a freelance writer, not a scholar of religion.; Anti-Muslim hate replicates anti-Semitic tropes and spreads between targeted groups — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 210; Anti-Islamic propaganda reached tens of millions of voters through shadowy funding (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Anti-Muslim hate replicates anti-Semitic tropes and spreads between targeted groups #exemplifies (0.55) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 210
• The invented rape-of-the-Virgin-Mary fantasy persists in modern anti-Muslim discourse #exemplifies (0.50)
• Representations of Muslims as monsters persist despite statistical evidence against them #exemplifies (0.45)
• Anti-Islamic propaganda reached tens of millions of voters through shadowy funding #corroborates (0.40)
• Islamophobic tropes become real violence through perceived enemy images #exemplifies (0.35)