Thread by @marcowenjones

1/ 🧵This graph shows X posts by impressions in the first six hours after the Magdeburg attack. Specifically these are posts falsely attributing the attack to an Islamist terror attack or a Syrian, or using it as an opportunity to attack immigration or muslims #disinformation

2/ The usual suspects are there - that is, the anti-Islam disinfluencers (routine spreaders of disinformation). As you can see, one of the most widely viewed is @visegrad24 - who shared at least 6 posts falsely claiming the attacker was an Islamist

3/ The posts falsely claiming that the attacker was a Muslim or Islamist gained at least 38,000,000 views. False claims that he was Syrian resulted in around 8.4million views (remember this is just an approx 6 hour period).

4/ If you include dogwhistle or slightly ambiguous racist or anti-immigrant statements then you can see how many impressions @nigel_farage got. He used the Magdeberg attack as an opportunity for a dogwhistle attack on Muslim immigrants

5/ People like Andrew Tate also got a lot of impressions, although not clear what he is trying to say here, implying the attacker was a Muslim or that he believes in 'Islamic-style' punishment?

6/ Then a lot of the usual suspects either giving false information about the attacker or using at as an opportunity to promote anti-Muslim and anti-Immigration sentiment @DaveAtherton20 @RadioGenoa @goldingbf etc

7/ It's important to note that with disinfluencers like this on soc media platforms - no amount of good journalism will stop this. The reflex of some ppl is to spread hate speech or faleshoods regardless of facts. With no platform accountability it will continue to get worse

8/ And just as a reminder the perpetrator was a Saudi-born man living legally in Germany as a doctor, who according to Germany’s minister of the interior held Islamophobic views.