But the popularity of the alarming tweet is not all that it seems, the BBC reports. While the call for mass murder of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims has been tweeted since 2013, and while the hashtag’s use spiked after Wednesday’s attack, the overwhelming majority of tweets containing the hashtag have been posted in repudiation of its genocidal incitement.
First, a sampling of the bad and the ugly…
“I’m so sorry for those French journalists, fucking Muslims I always hated and always will hate them. #KillAllMuslims,” tweeted @EchtGandolf, whose account appears to have been disabled or suspended.
@EchtGandolf also posted other tweets with the offensive hashtag, including this one asserting that “We as Europeans must unite against these fucking Muslims and drive them away once and for all.”
In another conversation thread, Steven Renner (@EpikMani) tweeted, “#KillAllMuslims is the only viable response to this war on Western culture.”
@BigBobbyTCOT, aka ‘The Angry Patriot,’ added, “KILL ALL MUSLIMS, WE HAVE TOLERATED THEM LONG ENOUGH!”
@sailboat22 warned that “Islam is a vicious cult. Mudlums have no place in any civilized country! Deport and kill them before they kill you!”
Frequent Fox News contributor Erik Rush, who tweeted that Muslims are “all evil, let’s kill them all,” in the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, did not use the #KillAllMuslims hashtag this time. But he did tweet, ” I say crap on their muhammed and their phony god.”
Now, the good. If there is a silver lining to this story, it is the mass rejection of the hateful hashtag’s message. These repudiations far outnumbered the hateful tweets.
“#KillAllMuslims is trending. The same mentality that Hitler, Al Qaeda, ISIS, KKK & other extremists hold. What a great time to be alive,” tweeted @KareemFenty.
“If you really cared about democratic rights and values, you’d be defending Muslims from hate and bigotry. Not starting #KillAllMuslims,” posted @Payitforward87.
More good news: #RespectForMuslims has been heavily trending Thursday, as #KillAllMuslims fell from Twitter’s top trending topics.
Sadly, numerous violent attacks against Muslims, especially against mosques, have been reported throughout France in the wake of Wednesday’s Islamist attack on the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine which gained international attention for its provocative cartoons lambasting Islam and other religions.
Twelve people — 10 Charlie Hebdo staff members and two policemen — were shot and killed by the attackers, two of whom remained at large as of Thursday evening. A third suspect turned himself in to police on Wednesday night.
