🧵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
🧵1/ Thought I'd zoom in on the data from the Southport riots, especially given the recent arrest of a man in Pakistan - which has prompted some commentators & news outlets to use it as an opportunity to target people of colour once again. Let's look at what happened
2/ A man in Pakistan, Farhan Asif, who ran Channel3NowNews, was just arrested for spreading misinfo. Channel3NowNews used the made-up name "Ali Al Shakati," However, contrary to some right-wing i/allusions, Channel3NowNews was NOT the first to tweet this name, or be arrested
3/ The first known person to post the name "Ali Al Shakati" on X was actually Artemisfornow, aka Bernie Spofforth, a wealthy woman from Cheshire. She tweeted the name over an hour before Channel3NowNews. She was arrested over a week ago, and released on bail.
🚨Important thread highlights how X under Musk is putting people at risk
1) This account impersonating a man who helped stop a knife attack in London is still live, & has accumulated well over 1 million impressions.
2) It's history indicates it is a pro-Putin "bot" connected
possibly to Pakistan. However, it also has pro-Ismail Haniyeh & Hamas content
3) Regardless of what you think of Hamas, this is far right rocket fuel. Tommy Robinson already tweeted out the fake account, wrongly accusing him of supporting an "islamist genocidal regime"
4) Despite Musk claiming he would clamp down on impersonator accounts this account has not been suspended yet. This is happening amidst a wave of anti -immigrant and anti-muslim violence in the UK.
🧵🚨This account @abdullahfromuk is impersonating a man who stopped a knife attack in London's Leicester Square. His original account handle was ZartashaPti and he has been tweeting pro-Imran Khan content in Urdu and English for most of his account history.
It has also tweeted content that would suggest it's pro-Vladimir Putin (although not in any particularly sophisticated way). The account is in the process of deleting its tweets, and it looks like a classic sockpuppet farm, for-hire type account.
@jneill has already highlighted some other content from the account, which again includes some Putin apologism
🧵🚨New analysis showing ALL tweets mentioning both "Muslim" & "UK" with over 500 retweets since 29 Jul. Graph shows which accounts got most impressions over time. Red/pink dots show anti-Muslim &/or anti-immigrant tweets, brown=neutral, green=tweets defending Muslims #UKRiots
2/ I grouped the tweets into the following three categories, 'anti', 'in defense of', and 'neutral'. Sadly the impressions gained by the number of 'anti' tweets was over 155 million (65%) while those 'in defense of' around 31 million. Neutral tweets were about 50 million.
3/ Parsing them finer we see that that the majority of the tweets were anti-Muslim, with half as many being both anti immigrant and both anti-Muslim. Some were solely anti-immigrant. #UKRiots
🧵🚨1/Somewhat depressing graph. I calculated whether all X posts with over 500 retweets mentioning the words "Muslim" and "UK" sent since 29th July were anti-muslim, anti-immigrant (red), neutral (blue), or in defense of muslims and/or immigration (green). #Ukriots #hatespeech
2/ I grouped the tweets into the following three categories, 'anti', 'in defense of', and 'neutral'. Sadly, the impressions gained by the number of 'Anti' tweets was over 159 million (67%), while those in defense of around 28 million. Neutral tweets were about 50 million
3/ Some of the most xenophobic and anti-muslim accounts include. @radiogenoa @goldingbf @tpointuk @jimfergusonuk @ashleasimonbf @europeinvasionn The degree of hate varies, from outright conspiracy theories, to suggestions that Muslims enjoy special treatment by the police.
🧵🚨I wanted to do another thread on the account @EuropeInvasionn. It's been one of the most widely viewed anti-immigrant & anti-muslim disinfluencers on X since the #Southport murders. Read more to learn about its shocking reach, disinformation, & hate speech #UKRiots
2/ Reminder. @Europeinvasionn is engaged in deception. We can tell this because it's a hijacked account. The account was created in 2010, but hacked/sold & scrubbed & has only tweeted since Feb 24. It's previous handle was makcanerkripto. Note the 'crypto' red flag...
3/ First up. Impressions. Since 27th July, the account has racked up over 133,475,023 impressions. To put that in words, that's one hundred thirty-three million four hundred seventy-five thousand and twenty-three. That is phenomenal.