Filenews 5 August 2024 - by Martin Ivens
Britain's worst targeted attack on children in nearly three decades left three little girls dead and five others seriously injured on Monday. A 17-year-old ran amok with a knife at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in northwest England.
After the suspect was quickly arrested, Southport residents expected to grieve peacefully. But they forgot to calculate the power of incendiary social media. Far-right thugs who communicated through the "Wild West Web" soon turned the tragedy of their small town into a national trauma.
There is always a certain amount of hooliganism in any free society and Britain has more than its fair share. What is new is the role the Internet plays in triggering and connecting these kinds of criminals. Silicon Valley oligarchs whose social media platforms amplify conspiracy theories and encourage extremism under the guise of free speech are rarely called to account for what they facilitate.
A fictional "Islamic illegal immigrant murderer"
On social media, the Southport suspect was falsely claimed to be "Ali Al-Shakati", a Muslim who had allegedly been smuggled into Britain in a small boat. The entirely fabricated Al-Shakati was also reportedly on MI6's watch list – and police were supposedly drowning out the story because of the sensitivities of ethnic minorities. "Muslim! Illegal immigrant! Terrorist!". As predicted, this disinformation lit the fuse of the social explosion.
The next day, when UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer went to lay flowers at the scene, he was greeted by an angry cry from the crowd: "Uncover the truth." By evening, racist hooligans had arrived to attack worshippers at a local Islamic mosque and throw bricks at the police protecting them. More than 50 police officers were injured. This was followed by a replication of violence in Hartlepool and the capital. Police blamed the far-right English Defence League (EDL), which was founded by persistent troublemaker Tommy Robinson.
Six hours later, it was revealed that the defendant was, in fact, born in the UK, the son of Rwandan refugees who had fled the country during the 1994 genocide. He was also a member of a church choir. However, once a conspiracy theory has begun to spread, it's hard to debunk it. On Thursday, Judge Andrew Menari relaxed traditional media's strict rules on naming arrested minors and revealed the identity of suspect Axel Rudakubana. Too late.
"Prosecutor" Starmer
The upsurge in far-right unrest, fortunately, can be countered by the power of the British prime minister. Starmer is a former Crown prosecutor, once responsible for prosecuting Northern Ireland terrorists. In 2011, when a wave of looting spread from the capital to the provinces, Starmer set up courts that operated 24 hours a day to try thousands of thugs arrested by police at the time.
On Thursday, the British prime minister had announced the creation of a new violent disorder unit to identify thugs who "move from community to community" across England. Those who are right-wing extremists with criminal convictions will be subject to movement restrictions under new behavioural orders, as is the case with any football hooligan fan.
Last Saturday, the EDL occupied Trafalgar Square in London, following a knife attack by a real-life Muslim terrorist on a uniformed army officer last month. More than 100 arrests were made. The far right has found an excuse in the left-wing pro-Palestinian protests that have brought London into semi-paralysis for weeks. This could be a long, hot summer of confrontation unless the authorities prove decisive.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is now considering a complete ban on the EDL. However, its predecessors have always been reluctant to take this step, because the legal definition of terrorism is – and rightly so – drafted strictly. Meanwhile, police and authorities need to be more direct and accurate in providing information – malignancies are extremely eager to fill information gaps. The police must also be equally sensitive when left-wing protesters disrupt social peace.
But the Wild West Web is harder to police. Andrew Tate, a misogynistic social media influencer with millions of fans, quickly spread the claim that an illegal immigrant stabbed "six little girls," adding the call "Wake Up." Others followed suit outside the UK's jurisdiction.
Putin and Farage in the "background"
Investigations by Tech Against Terrorism and the Daily Mail newspaper showed that a fake news website, Channel 3 Now, which began life as a Russian YouTube channel, was also instrumental in spreading misinformation about the Southport attack. Russia Today, Vladimir Putin's state-run international television station, repeated the claims.
Is it time to implement the state's new National Security and Internet Security laws against hostile foreign disinformation? Jonathan Hall, the government's legal adviser on terrorism, says "legislation requiring much more transparency from platforms" is needed to force internet giants to be more careful. That said, the Internet Safety Act has already made it a criminal offense to spread misinformation that causes "non-trivial psychological or physical harm," although it does not provide for specific content removal.
In recent months, social media platforms have adopted a more relaxed stance towards hate speech. Twitter/X under Elon Musk again allowed Robinson free speech, lifting his ban from the platform's previous owners. Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook has cut back on its content moderation groups. But even though Starmer and Cooper have talked about platforms taking more responsibility for the incendiary content they host, so far we've only seen words. Politicians seem to have shaky knees when faced with the titans of technology.
Southport also poses a test for the opposition of the centre-right Conservative Unionist Party. Hours before hooligans took to the streets, Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing populist party Reform UK and a newly elected MP, posted a video on X asking why the killings in the city are not being treated as "terrorism-related". Is the "truth" about the identity of the suspect being concealed, she asked supposedly innocently. On the BBC, the next morning, Brendan Cox (husband of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox) reacted by saying that Farage's provocative comments proved that the far-right politician is nothing more than "Tommy Robinson in a suit".
Tory MPs flirting with the idea of "unity of the right" by merging their losing party with Reform UK may want to think again. Farage looks like the polite friend in the pub who buys another round of beers, but sometimes, however, his mask slips, revealing his true face.
