In swift order, Hindutva nationalists took to social media, dubbing the virus "Corona Jihad" and Muslims "human bombs." These labels were accompanied by vile caricatures of Muslims spitting on bystanders and physicians, bigoted political cartoons spread in newspapers and disseminated on social media. Then doctored videos of Muslims disobeying stay-at-home orders went viral online, shared millions of times over within the country and beyond.

XREF: Connects to broader patterns of scapegoating minorities during epidemics and to viral misinformation campaigns documented in other contexts.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 463