Hannity's Misreads A Pew Study To Claim That “Significant” Numbers Of Muslims Support ISIS

Pew Study: “In Nations With Significant Muslim Populations, Much Disdain For ISIS”

Written by Brennan Suen & Tyler Cherry

Published

Radio host and Fox News personality Sean Hannity grossly misrepresented a Pew Research poll detailing views of ISIS in countries with significant Muslim populations to misleadingly claim that there are “significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world.” The survey actually found that Muslim views of ISIS are “overwhelmingly negative.”

On the November 20 edition of The Sean Hannity Show, Hannity claimed that a new Pew poll “reveals significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world.” He also alleged that the poll showed that there could be hundreds of millions of ISIS sympathizers and added that “numbers are far greater than the world has acknowledged.”

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): How about we look at the poll numbers they put out, and let's talk about whether or not this could be true, because it reveals significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world. They went to 11 representative nation-states -- excuse me, let me finish my question -- and up to 14 percent of the population has a favorable view of ISIS, and upwards of 62 percent can't decide. They don't know whether they have a favorable opinion. Don't you find those numbers chilling?

[...]

HANNITY: I am looking at these numbers, between 63 million and 287 million ISIS supporters in just 11 countries.

However, the Pew poll found that the data showed “overwhelmingly ... negative views of ISIS” in the eleven countries. From Pew:

According to newly released data that the Pew Research Center collected in 11 countries with significant Muslim populations, people from Nigeria to Jordan to Indonesia overwhelmingly expressed negative views of ISIS.

One exception was Pakistan, where a majority offered no definite opinion of ISIS. The nationally representative surveys were conducted as part of the Pew Research Center's annual global poll in April and May this year.

In no country surveyed did more than 15% of the population show favorable attitudes toward Islamic State. And in those countries with mixed religious and ethnic populations, negative views of ISIS cut across these lines.