Who Holds the Power to Set the Rules?

Key Takeaways from Our Webinar on Democracy, Regulation, and Global Power: Recap of Zenith Khan’s Presentation

In early May, INACH hosted its Webinar “Who Sets the Rules Online? Democracy, Regulation and Global Power.” Zenith Khan, a digital research analyst at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), spoke about CSOH’s report which detailed how Elon Musk and far-right actors weaponized discourse about UK ‘grooming gangs’ and child protection to spread and amplify Islamophobic narratives on X.

Khan described how, in January of 2025, Elon Musk used X to accuse the British Prime Minister of secretly covering up ‘grooming gangs.’ The CSOH says the term ‘grooming gangs’ has “ come to signify groups of men (typically Muslim and of Pakistani heritage), often operating in networks, to systematically groom, exploit, and sexually abuse vulnerable (white) children, primarily teenage girls.” However, this is a racialized misrepresentation, as ‘grooming gang’ perpetrators match the ethnic composition of the UK, with a majority of perpetrators being white. Still, Musk, other social media users, and British media have often disproportionately blamed Muslim and south Asian populations for these gangs. Spreaders of this narrative also accused the political and governmental institutions of a cover-up for these ‘grooming gangs,’ and despite its falsity, this was used as ‘evidence’ to attack multiculturalism in general.

While this narrative had existed before Musk posted it in January, Khan demonstrates how the surge in posts following Musk’s endorsement of it wasn’t just due to the 7.7x greater volume of related posts in January, but also due to Musk’s large visibility, which resulted in ~93x the amount of interactions with the narrative on X than before. Khan reflects on this, saying “the key platform question is not only whether hate exists online. It is how certain actors and affordances make one racialized interpretation disproportionately visible, actionable, and politically useful.” Indeed, due to the international nature of X, Musk was able to amplify this harmful interpretation of the issue across borders, leading media outlets in the EU, UK, and India to further promote this Islamophobic narrative.

Khan says this case necessitates more than the common governance question of “Is this content illegal?” and rather begs the question: “How did this narrative become so disproportionately visible?” She says the factors that play a role in this range from individual pieces of hateful content, to the algorithms and platforms that enable its spread, all the way to the power structures (such as platform ownership and agenda-setting ability).

Khan’s presentation concluded with some practical takeaways for researchers and civil society, such as the importance of having a nuanced understanding of how narratives like these evolve and which important actors are responsible for them, the need to demand more transparent social media platform systems, and the value of preparing rapid-response plans to address fast-spreading issues like this one when they are amplified by powerful actors.

Written By: Fox Oliver

Curious about what the other presenters at the Webinar had to say? Scroll through our blog archives to read our recaps of Aishik Saha’s and Aidan O’Brien’s presentations.