AT 8pm on July 30, hundreds of protesters gathered outside Southport Mosque.
The atmosphere was tense as police gathered in response. Just the day earlier, a 17-year-old killed three children and critically injured five more in a shocking knife attack at a yoga and dance workshop.
It didn’t take long for the protesters to clash with officers, throwing rocks at the mosque and chanting “English till I die” and “Tommy Robinson” – a far right figure who founded the English Defence League.
The group then trashed a department store and set alight a police vehicle as Merseyside Police requested further officers from Greater Manchester Police, Cheshire Constabulary, Lancashire Police and North Wales Police (full timeline below).
By the time the riot ended around 11pm, more than 50 officers were injured and 27 hospitalised.
A grieving town, disgustingly, became a warzone. And why? It has become a familiar if worrying pattern: A violent attack sets social media alight with far-right figures and bots quickly capturing and spreading unfounded and incorrect information about the attacker’s identity and motivation.
This time, as it often is, the target was the Muslim community as well as asylum seekers.
‘There's no doubt in my mind that disinformation was a real key component of motivating [the protesters] to do what they did,” said Dr Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation expert and an associate professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa university in Qatar.
Jones told the Sunday National that within a day of the attack, there were at least 27 million post impressions on Twitter/X that stated or speculated the suspected attacker was Muslim, a migrant, a refugee or a foreigner.
This was amplified by well-known far-right figures including influencer and worldwide misogynist Andrew Tate, who said in a video that an “undocumented migrant” who had “arrived on a boat” had attacked the girls in Southport.
Bots, too, amplify the disinformation. As does an account and website purporting to be a news organisation called Channel3 Now – whose post at 5:51pm on the day of the attack falsely named the attacker as “Ali al-Shakati”, supposedly a Muslim migrant new to the UK.
13) List of shame - top ten accounts with most impressions spreading xenophobic disinformation and/or propaganda after the tragic Southport stabbings. pic.twitter.com/VvfYND8eAz
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) July 30, 2024
The man who was arrested was later named as 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, who is from a nearby village in Lancashire, but was born in Cardiff. He is neither Muslim nor a migrant.
The Channel3 Now website claims to be based in the United States, but seems to have started out 12 years ago sharing Russian-language videos of men in cars before pivoting to US and international news.
“Some of the most influential accounts saying that the attacker was Muslim are by definition deceptive accounts,” said Jones.
“One of them, Europe Invasion, is a hijacked account. Someone bought or hijacked an existing Twitter account, scrubbed all the old tweets off it, gave it a new name and has now used it exclusively to post anti-immigration, anti-Muslim content.”
He added that the level of co-ordination involved in this sort of disinformation and the amount of engagement it received speak to a certain intent behind it.
“That account's only been going since February, but it's got more than 300,000 followers," Jones went on.
"Its tweets get ridiculous amounts of engagement, which points to engagement farming or some sort of manipulation.
“Which, to me, also indicates a level of co-ordination which itself suggests there is some entity behind this doing it for money, power or division.”
Jones also highlighted the role that Twitter CEO Elon Musk (above) has played since taking over the company, including disbanding the trust and safety team and changing the blue tick system.
“The first account to mention the false name of the attacker was a verified account. And again, it's just another example of how Musk's changes completely upended the verification system, which is meant to at least give some level of credibility,” he said.
“This kind of identity verification is not identity based, it's credit based. And not only that, the blue tick algorithmically boosts your content so any bad actor can pay for it and then have their propaganda or disinformation amplified. It's basically pay-to-play propaganda.”
More can and should be done by UK Government
Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK Government will be expanding police and intelligence powers as numerous other far-right riots sprung up across England.
Riots also took place in London, Hartlepool and Manchester on Wednesday evening, as more than 100 people were arrested after protesters in Whitehall launched beer cans and glass bottles at police. More spread to other parts of the country including Sunderland on Friday evening.
The Prime Minister (below) said the UK Government will be establishing a “national capability across police forces” to tackle violent disorder including shared intelligence between forces, a wider deployment of facial recognition technology and criminal behaviour orders to restrict people’s movements.
He also warned social media companies that they must uphold laws that prohibit the incitement of violence online.
But Jones said that the rhetoric aside, more concrete action is needed.
“The UK Online Safety Act is pretty toothless when it comes to disinformation. In fact, they removed the mentions of disinformation and misinformation because they were worried about freedom of speech,” he said.
“[Something like] the Digital Services Act in the EU would be far more powerful.”
Jones added: “The Government shouldn't be afraid to to actually put pressure on social media companies, to do more to regulate their content or give public civil society, whether it's academics or otherwise, the tools to be able to monitor effectively and counter that content.”
Could we see violence like this spread to Scotland?
Policing is devolved in Scotland and Police Scotland told The National that there is “no current intelligence” to suggest similar far-right riots are likely in Scotland but also said they will continue to “monitor developments.”
It comes despite Tommy Robinson (below) promoting a “pro-UK” march in Glasgow in the aftermath of the riots, with counter protests being organised in response.
The British are rising 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/djsUpoDLRk
— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) July 31, 2024
Robinson, who has reportedly fled the UK to evade charges linked to contempt of court, posted on social media: “The British are rising [Union flag emoji].”
He shared an image promoting a rally in Glasgow’s George Square at 1pm on Saturday, September 7. It stated: “This will remain a peaceful protest to share our distrust and fear of the future.”
Meanwhile, a Muslim group has also expressed concerns that mosques in Glasgow could be targeted.
Zara Mohammed, the Glasgow-based secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), has said hundreds of mosques across the UK will be strengthening their security and protective measures.
It comes as 19 rallies backed by right-wing groups across the UK were planned for this weekend.
Mohammed said there is a “palpable fear” among Muslim communities.
Jones, meanwhile, said the kind of violence and disinformation we saw in Southport could affect anywhere.
“It just happened to be in Southport because that's where there was a horrible stabbing and then that was exploited," he explained.
“And if any event or similar event happened in Scotland, the same kind of narratives would undoubtedly proliferate and you might see the same kind of violence.”
