Tell Indian Americans Leading YouTube To Act Against Hindu Supremacist Hate Now!
“So many illegal people have come in America, but they are taking part in these entire movements. Somebody’s paying big money.” – Vibhuti Jha on his YouTube channel, The Jaipur Dialogues USA, on anti-war student protests.
“At some stage the civilized world has to come to the realization that until or otherwise we eradicate Islam this problem will not go away.” – Kalavai Venkat on the PGurus YouTube channel, run by Sree Iyer, on how to end conflict in Israel-Palestine.
Bigoted speech of this kind is rife on a number of Hindu supremacist channels. It clearly violates YouTube’s policy on supremacist speech, and has been flagged by Savera’s researchers to YouTube through its official channels. But YouTube has failed to take action. Now, as Israel’s devastating bombardment of Gaza accelerates, Hindu supremacist YouTubers — led by the likes of Vibhuti Jha and Sree Iyer — have continued to fan the flames, spreading hate speech, disinformation, and even calls for genocide.
These YouTubers, who draw heavily from white supremacist and Trumpist conspiracy theories, highlight the ways in which far-right ideologies and conspiracy theories from across different supremacist movements have converged. But they also exemplify how this has happened: because of the open platform provided by such figures to the likes of YouTube.
Our community plays a major role in the leadership of social media corporations. Indian Americans also have a long history of solidarity with the civil rights movement and the struggle for a just, multiracial democracy. However, the unwillingness of YouTube — led by Mr. Mohan, an Indian American — to clampdown on harmful content has allowed a far-right fringe within our community, the Hindu supremacist movement, to grow unchecked. In effect, Indian American leaders in Big Tech have chosen profits and power over an alignment with democratic values at the very moment they are so existentially under attack in the United States, India, and the rest of the world.
Sign this petition to demand that Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, apply their policies on supremacist speech consistently. Join us to tell Mr. Mohan that anything less would be a capitulation to the far-right, and an abdication of his responsibility: as an executive, and as an Indian-American.
For more research on Hindu supremacist YouTubers, read Savera’s factsheet on the topic here.