🧵🚨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.
4/ Here I plotted the tweets over time. They are colour coded as to whether the tweets were negative neutral or positive towards Muslims or immigrants. Out of 230 tweets, 66% were negative, and 34% neutral (Many of the neutral ones contextually were also negative).
5/ Over the past 10 days, the account has spread numerous high profile pieces of disinformation. I have highlighted the demonstrably and egregiously false information in yellow. Of course all these lies are directed at Arab, Muslims or immigrants. There's even a 'civil war' tweet
6/ Some close ups of the disinformation. Note when referring to the graph that many of the posts with the most impressions were false. Disinformation is often sensationalist, and sensationalism gets clicks. Most of the disinfo falsely blames Muslims for crimes #UKriots
7/ The fact that this account remains on the platform exemplifies the indifference X has to disinfo, hate speech, and fake accounts. Not only that, @elonmusk, aka the disinfluencer-in-chief, has even boosted this account with his replies. Shocking state of affairs
8/ Oh, and as an added 'bonus', it also posts super creepy, racist AI imagery. #UkRiots
9/ Oh and as an added bonus you can view the tables and charts here, and hover over the bubbles to look at the tweet text: public.tableau.com/shared/YZQYQJR…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
🧵🚨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.
PSA: I wasn't going to indulge this but thought it was an opportunity for some important media literacy. @Artemisfornow - who is the first person documented to use the fake name 'Ali Al Shakati' to describe the #Southport killer, is claiming she copied the post from FB
2/ She is claiming a post on Facebook posted at 11.26 used the name Ali Al Shakati, before she posted it on X. Bernie posted her original tweet at 4.49 UK time. However, the Facebook post she mentions was sent at 7.26 UK time. So why the 11.26?
3/ This is just how browsers resolve time diffs. As these screenshots show, if you look at a FB post without logging it will give you the default time zone, which is UTC-8 or Pacific Standard Time. If you login it resolves to local time. See for yourself facebook.com/Adebimpeademej…
How much did Musk's "civil war is inevitable' reply to a tweet spreading #disinformation boost the original tweet?
TLDR: A reply from Musk will boost racist disinformation.
#UkRiots
👉
2/ On Aug 4 at 00.45 UTC the account @stclairashley retweeted a @libsoftiktok video with a false and xenophobic remark about immigration - attributing violence in UK to open borders (there aren't open borders). Musk replies at 03.07 UTC saying "Civil war is inevitable"
3/ The below graph shows the number of retweets over time. In green, are the retweets of @stclairashley's tweet BEFORE Musk replied. The orange tweets are the retweets AFTER Musk replies. Note the DRAMATIC increase in retweets of @stclairashley's tweet after Musk's intervention
🧵🚨1/ It's insane that @Elonmusk replied to @europeinvasionn's tweet about UK riots. The account EuropeInvasionn, as I have stated many times now, is an influence operation. It's a hijacked X account that exclusively deals in anti-migrant & anti-Muslim great replacement disinfo
2/ EuropeInvasion was the most influential account spreading the false news that the attacker in #Southport was a Muslim. Arguably one of the biggest vectors in the disinfo potentially contributing to the violence in the UK
3/ A day later, it was the most widely shared account spreading an unsubstantiated and unfounded rumour that a murder in Ipswich was conducted by a Somali immigrant.
1/ 🧵Just did a network analysis of the "far right thugs unite" hashtag. It largely seems to be a simulated scandal/outrage to promote the Reform Party and Nigel Farage and - while also being an attack on Keir Starmer.
2) The campaign is ostensibly a reaction to Starmer saying that the recent riots have been conducted by a 'tiny minority' of 'thugs'. He has also blamed the far right, although he never used the term 'far right thugs'. In fact, as we'll see later, this term was used by Farage.
3/ Starmer is the largest node in the network as many people are tagging him to express solidarity with the 'far right'. This is based on the false accusation that Starmer somehow called 'ordinary brits' far right thugs - which he didn't. #disinformation