Thread by @marcowenjones

🧵1/ Thread on the #Southport anti-migrant and anti-Muslim disinformation and propaganda. In this thread I highlight key spreaders of disinformation, the chronology, and some points about some of the inauthentic activity evident. I will focus on X.

2/ First. What we know so far. The attacker 17 was, born in Cardiff, but moved to near Southport. There's no indication of his religion, and his parents have been reported as being from Rwanda (although again questionable why this is relevant). The rest is speculation #southport

3/ Firstly, there were at least 27 million impressions for posts stating or speculating that the attacker was Muslim, a migrant, refugee or foreigner. There were people also denouncing these speculations - especially the more racist ones.

4/ This graph has been filtered to show accounts that spread this speculation over time (adjusted to UK time). The size of the circle relates to the number of the impressions. Some of the most influential included= @Cobratate @darrengrimes_ @EuropeInvasionn and @afowler06

5/ The nature of the disinfo varies. Andrew Tate claims the attacker was an illegal immigrant, Fowler claims they were Syrian. Europe Invasion claim they were a Muslim, while Grimes suggests they are refugees. Either way, xenophobic speculation. Of course Tommy Robinson is

6) also in the mix. Another aspect of this campaign is someone making up an Arabic sounding name for the attacker - "Ali al Shakati". As others have mentioned, the account that first mentioned this is @Artemisfornow. They deleted this tweet & did not say where the name came from

7) Following this mention, other accounts started using the name "ali al shakati" - despite there being no legitimate source for this. It's worth noting well known right wing accounts like @endwokeness also tweeted this - citing @channel3nownews

7) However, @channel3nownews is obviously an illegitimate website. Indeed, I found four Facebook pages connected to them. One of these pages was repurposed - it used to be called "Funny Hours" in 2016, but changed its name to Fox3News and then Channel3Now. Those who operate it

8) are reported to be in Pakistan & the US. Their website doesn't have anything by way of a serious 'about us' page. The only author I could find through checking the sitemap was James Lawley. This goes back to a LinkedIn profile of a guy running a lawn company in Nova Scotia

9) I want to talk to about @EuropeInvasionn . This account, which was briefly suspended and has now been reinstated, used to be called @makcanekripto. It was then scrubbed and repurposed and now promotes anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant stories, & spreads disinformation. Although

10) it says it was created in 2010, it's only tweeted in its current incarnation since around February 2024. It quickly got over 300k followers> It routinely gets thousands of likes and RT's - which are almost certainly inauthentic too. It was one of the first and most shared

11/ accounts to share the rumour that the attacker was Muslim. I will likely add more to this thread, but worth mentioning that while people always spread incorrect information in the wake of a tragic event (we saw this with Sydney), there is clear and attempt to exploit the

12/ tragic incident by right wing influencers and grifters - pushing an anti-immigrant and xenophobic agenda despite there being no evidence. #disinfo

13) List of shame - top ten accounts with most impressions spreading xenophobic disinformation and/or propaganda after the tragic Southport stabbings.

14) Feel free to ask questions, or send queries I can use on the data.

Update: And now there are protests outside a mosque in Southport, highlighting the dangers of propaganda and disinformation

note: The channel3now news YouTube account's early videos are in Russian, and seem to be about car rallies. However you'll notice those videos are 11 years old - then there was nothing for 6 years and then a bunch of videos about Pakistan. Again this suggests that a Russian car rallying fan had their account hijacked and repurposed as opposed to a Russian disinfo op. The Pakistan connection is interesting though, especially as in some of the content people use the term "Mohammedan" to mean Muslim - which would be archaic in English

For those asking about tools I used @nodexl pro to gather and analyse the X data. I also use Gephi and Tableau to do visualisations.

note* So far the attacker's motive is unknown and there is no evidence religion (whatever his may or may not have been was) played any role. Given Rwanda though is 94% Christian the attacks outside a Southport mosque and rumours about him being Muslim are even more troubling.

Incidentally I did a thread documenting a similar phenomenon in the wake of the #sydneystabbings #southport

Merseyside police have stated the name "Ali Al Shakati" is fake

For those interested in this and the subsequent #Southport riots I'd recommend reading this report by myself and @SohanDsouza on how dark money has been using FB ads to spread anti immigrant and anti Muslim disinfo in the UK for the past 6 months

@SohanDsouza Here's a writeup I did for Al Jazeera English - The Qatar Plot: How a covert influence campaign helped Europe’s far right aje.io/u72tk9

Some of my subsequent analysis on disinformation on today's episode of @TheNewsAgents