“The Sun,” a widely read tabloid newspaper in the U.K., published a controversial headline on Nov. 23 which claimed that one in five British Muslims has “sympathy for jihadis.” The headline comes at a precarious time for many European- as well as American-Muslims who have reported increased violence and hate crimes against them ever since the attacks on Paris on Nov. 13.
The headline, as many have been quick to point out, is misleading because the polling tactics used by the newspapers did not actually ask the question about having sympathy for jihadis. Instead, reports say that the exact wording of the questions asked of the individuals polled was if they had "sympathy with young Muslims who leave to UK to join fighters in Syria” -- which could also be easily interpreted as young volunteers to go to Syria to fight jihadis.
Furthermore, other reports have found that the methods used to determine if the people polled were Muslim or not were flawed and could not possibly been accurate given the quick turnaround time the newspaper wanted to print its story.
According to reports, the polling firm Survation, which conducted the poll on behalf of “The Sun” contacted 1,500 people from their database with “Muslim sounding names” and then asked them if they identified as such before continuing with the poll – other pollsters criticize the method as lacking sufficient socioeconomic and demographic details in order to represent a true sampling of the British Muslim population.
“To survey Britain’s Muslim population, particularly at a time of such heightened sensitivities, requires the kind of time, care, and therefore cost, that is beyond a newspaper’s budget,” said a spokesperson for YouGov a polling firm that declined to conduct the survey for “The Sun” because they did not feel they could confidently get accurate results in the time frame they were allotted.
The mockery of “The Sun's” flawed poll and misleading headline has been swift. The hashtag #1in5Muslims was spawned on Twitter to troll the anti-Islamic sentiments of the headline with other random made-up Muslim facts.
#1in5Muslims are your daughter's favorite heartthrob pic.twitter.com/8WU0nEY17L
— Khaled Bey (@KhaledBeydoun) November 24, 2015
#1in5Muslims make up a fifth of the entire Muslim population. Facts beat #SunHeadlines. — James Melville (@JamesMelville) November 23, 2015
#1in5Muslims think if only @Adele said Salaam instead of Hello the dude would be forced to reply!!
— Bilal (@bilalhassam) November 23, 2015
#1in5Muslims say their cats prefer Whiskers — Exceedingly Unseelie (@der_bluthund) November 23, 2015
#1in5muslims think Ross and Rachel were on a break
— ثناء (@LiberatedSoul_) November 23, 2015
#1in5Muslims is a Belieber. — Leeya (@Soul_Dignified) November 23, 2015
#1in5Muslims force their pets to wear modest Islamic clothing pic.twitter.com/Zen1T5q2eK
— _ (@sumaiyyahhh) November 23, 2015
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