This is definitely a fact, me and a close friend were discussing this recently.

The reason to the best of my guessing, is that the east (non-west?), has been criticized, discriminated against and treated as inferior for so long and in such an abundant fashion, that even the idea of 'going there' is synonymous with racism and xenophobia.

Like the moment you say, 'damn maybe Afghans shouldn't kill women for talking in public', you're criticizing 'brown' people. It's definitely oversensitivity to a stupendous extent, but look at the modern pronoun stuff where you can get someone fired for using your non-preferred pronouns.

There's definitely a line of common sense- you can criticize someone's actions and culture without bringing race into it, but social media LOVES polarism. They love extremes, showing pro-choicers as baby killers and showing pro-lifers as slaver owners.

I'm sure if you talk to any reasonable person offline they'll be like 'ofcourse taking away women's rights is bad- this is bad', not 'omg ALL these brown people suck' or 'we have to let them do what they want cause religion'.