Trump's call to ban Muslims draws fire on social media

By Angela Moon and Melissa Fares
NEW YORK, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Republican presidential
contender Donald Trump's demand that the U.S. stop allowing
Muslims into the United States lit up social media on Tuesday,
as critics of the proposal around the world took to Twitter (N:TWTR) and
Facebook (O:FB) to express their outrage.
In Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population,
Twitter user @aulia, said: "Donald Trump has made America
dangerous. He doesn't need to win to turn the US into Nazi
Germany."
In the United States, just five states accounted for more
than half the American Twitter traffic on Trump, according to
Keyhole, a real-time social media analytics tool. The biggest
buzz came from New York state, home of one of the largest Muslim
populations in the country and the origin of 15 percent of all
mentions of Trump.
California followed with 14 percent of the volume, while
Texas grabbed the No. 3 spot with 12 percent. Virginia and
Georgia, at 5 percent each, rounded out the top five states.
Worldwide, U.S. mentions of Trump accounted for 58 percent
of the total, with Canada a distant second with 5 percent and
Germany at No. 3 with 4 percent.
The Republican presidential front-runner made his proposal
on Monday, sparking a torrent of criticism from both Democratic
and Republican presidential candidates, the White House, senior
Obama administration officials and congressional leaders that
extended into Tuesday.
On Twitter, the most popular hashtags associated with the
outspoken billionaire candidate following his proposal were
#TrumpisnotmyAmerica and #DontVoteTrump.
More typically, hashtags most popularly associated with
Trump are #Trump, #Trump2016, #DonaldTrump and
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain, according to online research firm
Hashtagify.me.
This was not the first time Trump has made controversial
comments during his campaign. But it was the most dramatic
response by a candidate yet to last week's shooting spree in San
Bernardino by two Muslims who the FBI said had been radicalized.
Outside of the United States, the topic "Donald Trump" and
"Muslims" were searched the most in Kenya, Panama and Puerto
Rico, according to Google (O:GOOGL) Trends.
An image of Trump with his arm raised, directly comparing
him to Adolf Hitler, also trended heavily.
A number of Tweets posited that Trump's remark was his
"jumping the shark" moment, suggesting it could mark the peak of
the outspoken billionaire' s meteoric climb in popularity in the
race for the Republican nomination for president.
"The shark has been jumped. #trump," Tweeted MSNBC program
"Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough. That tweet generated more
than 100 retweets.

TWEETS OUTPOUR WORLDWIDE
Trump's statement sparked outrage on social media around the
globe.
Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia denounced Trump's call for
the ban, dismissing him as a bigot who promoted violence.
In Europe, a Twitter user identified as @frauke1983 wrote:
"Let's say Donald Trump is not allowed to travel to Europe ...
forever"
For more reaction on Twitter, see: http://www.reuters.com/subjects/trump-reaction#2bBQKEO5CoZbOiwp.97
Twitter sentiment toward Trump fell to about 18 over the
past day, according to Topsy, an analytics platform that tracks
mentions and trends on Twitter and Google, down from about 28
for the past week.
A score below 50 means there are more negative mentions than
positive ones. The lower the score, the more negative it is.