Algorithmic Panic: Platformed Amplification & The Making of “Somali Fraud”

Algorithmic Racial Panic: Platformed Amplification and the Making of the “Somali Fraud” Viral Story
This presentation examines how algorithmic media infrastructures contribute to the production and amplification of racial panic through viral political narratives. Focusing on the “Somali Fraud” story that emerged in late December 2025, it explores how a right-wing YouTube video alleging fraud involving Somali-owned daycare centers and healthcare businesses in Minnesota became the basis for a broader racialized national narrative. Situating the story within a cross-platform digital ecosystem spanning YouTube, X, Reddit, news media, podcasts, and influencer networks, the presentation draws on digital ethnography, Critical Discourse Analysis, and platform walkthrough methods to investigate how algorithmic circulation, engagement, repetition, and platform visibility shape public understandings of Somali Americans. It develops the concepts of racializing algorithms and digital colonialism to demonstrate how virality can function as a mechanism of racial formation, associating marginalized communities with criminality, welfare dependency, immigration, and contested national belonging.

The presentation also foregrounds Somali American counter-narratives and storytelling as forms of digital resistance that challenge dominant representations and reclaim narrative agency. Ultimately, it argues that digital platforms are not neutral spaces of communication but contested infrastructures through which racial hierarchies are reproduced, legitimized, and challenged.

Ahmed Ilmi
https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/dgds/ahmed-ilmi
Assistant Professor
Department of Global Development Studies
University of Toronto

About the Speaker:

An interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar, Dr. Ilmi’s research focuses on cultural identity, diasporic politics, and the intersections of Blackness and Africa. He has a Ph.D. in sociology with specialization in the sociology of race and ethnicity, social movements, and social justice education. Dr. Ilmi’s research interests include African Indigenous cultural knowledges, spirituality, diaspora and transnational Islamic identities, critical development studies, and the ethics of community research. He has published widely on African philosophy, Indigenous knowledges, spirituality, gender, development, identity politics, and the education of Black boys.

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This is a talk with audience Q&A presented by the University of Toronto's Centre for Ethics that is free to attend and open to the public. Free refreshments will be provided at the event. The talk will also be streamed online with live chat here [to be posted].

About the Centre for Ethics (http://ethics.utoronto.ca):

The Centre for Ethics is an interdisciplinary centre aimed at advancing research and teaching in the field of ethics, broadly defined. The Centre seeks to bring together the theoretical and practical knowledge of diverse scholars, students, public servants and social leaders in order to increase understanding of the ethical dimensions of individual, social, and political life.

In pursuit of its interdisciplinary mission, the Centre fosters lines of inquiry such as (1) foundations of ethics, which encompasses the history of ethics and core concepts in the philosophical study of ethics; (2) ethics in action, which relates theory to practice in key domains of social life, including bioethics, business ethics, and ethics in the public sphere; and (3) ethics in translation, which draws upon the rich multiculturalism of the City of Toronto and addresses the ethics of multicultural societies, ethical discourse across religious and cultural boundaries, and the ethics of international society.

The Ethics of A.I. Lab at the Centre For Ethics recently appeared on a list of 10 organizations leading the way in ethical A.I.: https://ocean.sagepub.com/blog/10-organizations-leading-the-way-in-ethical-ai