Did social media fan the flames of riot in Southport?
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It’s become a familiar pattern of events: a violent, terrifying attack unfolds, innocent people are killed, and social media is set alight with unfounded - and often incorrect - accusations about about the assailant's identity and what the motivation was.
Think back to the stabbing attacks in Sydney earlier this year,
falsely blamed on a Jewish student, or even
the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in July.
It’s the same with Monday’s attack on a children’s holiday dance and yoga session in Southport, England.
A false name - attributed to the 17-year-old accused of killing three little girls as well as injuring eight other children and two adults - spread like wildfire across X, formerly known as Twitter.
It wasn’t just this fake name either. There were false claims the attacker was a refugee who arrived in the UK by boat in 2023 and unfounded speculation he is Muslim. Some of these posts were accompanied by Islamophobic and racist hate.
Merseyside Police have confirmed that the 17-year-old they have arrested was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents, that he appears to have no known links to Islam, and that they are not currently investigating the attack as terror-related.
This all contradicts lots of these claims - but it didn’t stop them poisoning an already toxic online atmosphere
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1e8d7llg9o