Social media has significantly contributed to the anti-immigration riots sweeping across towns and cities in the United Kingdom. Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and owner of X (formerly Twitter), has been particularly influential. On Sunday, he posted that “civil war is inevitable” in response to a claim blaming the violent demonstrations on “mass migration and open borders.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson condemned Musk’s comment, stating “there’s no justification for that.” However, Musk persisted, labelling Starmer #TwoTierKier and likening Britain to the Soviet Union for attempting to restrict offensive speech on social media.
Government Response
Musk’s decision to amplify the anti-immigrant rhetoric highlights the role that false information spread online is playing in fomenting real-world violence — an issue of growing concern to the UK government, which vowed Tuesday to bring those responsible for the riots, as well as their online cheerleaders, to justice.
Later on Tuesday, a 28-year-old man in Leeds, northern England, became the first person to be charged with using “threatening words or behavior intending to stir up racial hatred” online, according to the UK Crown Prosecution Service. The charges related to “alleged Facebook posts,” Nick Price, the director of legal services at the CPS, said in a statement.
Riots & Rioters
Rioters have damaged public buildings, set cars on fire and hurled bricks at police officers. They also set ablaze two Holiday Inn hotels in northern and central England believed to be housing asylum seekers awaiting a decision on their claims. Hundreds have been arrested.
The riots broke out last week after far-right groups claimed on social media that the person charged with carrying out a horrific stabbing attack that left three children dead was a Muslim asylum seeker. The online disinformation campaign stoked outrage directed at immigrants.
The suspect, who has since been named as 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was born in the UK, according to police.
But false claims about the attack — Britain’s worst mass stabbing targeting children in decades and possibly ever — spread rapidly online and continued garnering views even after the police had set the record straight.
Institute for Strategic Dialogue
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank, by mid-afternoon on July 30, the day after the attack, a false name circulated online for the alleged asylum seeker had received more than 30,000 mentions on X alone from more than 18,000 unique accounts.
“The false name attributed to the attacker was circulated organically but also recommended to users by platform algorithms,” the ISD said in a statement.
“Platforms therefore amplified misinformation to users who may not otherwise have been exposed, even after the police had confirmed the name was false.”
According to the UK government, bots, which it said could be linked to state-backed actors, may well have amplified the spread of false information.
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Source: CNN Business
