LONDON — Rioters attacked police and stormed a mosque in a seaside town in northwestern England, after far-right networks on social media spread misinformation about a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class that
killed three young girls and critically wounded seven others.
Police said the riot in Southport on Tuesday night was stoked in part by social media posts that incorrectly alleged that the stabbing was perpetrated by a recent asylum seeker who had arrived in Britain by illegally crossing the English Channel on a raft.
Amid reported chants of “We want our country back,” rioters pelted police with bricks, injuring as many as 50 officers and sending 27 to hospitals. The rioters also smashed the windows of a mosque, torched vehicles and looted a shop.
The ugly violence, on the same day the town was holding a peaceful heart-rending vigil for the dead and injured girls, stunned Britain, where the stabbings have been round-the-clock news.
Shortly before lunchtime on Monday, an assailant
attacked a children’s dance class on the first day of summer vacation. Three girls have died — Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, ages 6 to 9. Five children and two adults remain in critical condition.
Police are searching for a motive but say the attack does not appear related to terrorism.
The 17-year-old suspect, arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, was born in Britain — in Cardiff, Wales —
police stressed. The BBC and Financial Times reported that his parents were originally from Rwanda.
Because of his age, his name has not been released by authorities. But
police confirmed on Tuesday that a name circulating on social media in connection with the case was incorrect.
“There has been much speculation and hypothesis around the status of a 17-year-old male who is currently in police custody and some individuals are using this to bring violence and disorder to our streets,” police said in a
statement.
Police identified the rioters as supporters of the English Defense League, a now-disbanded organization of anti-Islam agitators and soccer hooligans, who still gather often in raw, sometimes violent protests.
Merseyside Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said “a number of arrests were made” on Tuesday night and that further investigation is underway.
Patrick Hurley, Southport’s member of Parliament, emphasized that the melee was staged not by locals but “beered-up thugs” who were “using the horrific incident on Monday … for their own political purposes.”
The former de facto leader of the EDL,
Tommy Robinson, issued denials on social media, writing: “There’s has been no EDL for over a decade.” But in a
video seen more than 3 million times since he posted it on Tuesday around 9 p.m., he argued that “anger is justified” in Southport, because the British authorities have “opened our borders,” resulting in “children being butchered and murdered.”
“You care more for Afghanis, Somalis, Eritreans, Syrians, Pakistanis,” he shouted, red faced. “They’re a danger to us.”
(Robinson’s whereabouts are unknown since he fled Britain on Sunday night, on the eve of unrelated contempt-of-court proceedings.)
Hours after Monday’s stabbings, a false claim about the suspect’s identity was posted on an obscure X account and amplified by prominent far-right figures. Even though the social media company tacked a “community note” to the original post and eventually removed it, the claim went viral.
“It looks like the tweet has been deliberately fabricated to generate hostility toward ethnic minorities and immigrants, and it’s a potentially Islamophobic piece of propaganda,” said Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at the University of Loughborough and expert in the spread of online misinformation.
According to X’s analytics, the original post received at least 1.7 million views before it was removed. Videos repeating the claim were
shared by Andrew Tate, an American-British
former kickboxing champion who has built a
popular personal brand around hyper-masculinity, and
Laurence Fox, an actor turned right-wing activist. Their posts received around 17 million views between them, according to X’s data.
Chadwick traced the original claim to a website called Channel 3 Now News, which he said had the hallmarks of a misinformation site run for political or commercial motives, if not both. “It looks like a news website, feels like a news website, but of course it isn’t — it’s based off a WordPress template,” he said, after examining its underlying code, which is publicly available.
According to Chadwick, the claim spread quickly online for a combination of reasons: Emotions were high as people sought information in the aftermath of a gruesome attack, the claim was charged, and content restrictions on X have been loosened since the social media platform was acquired by Elon Musk in 2022.
“We also know that historically social media algorithms are tweaked in order to further that content, because they know that it promotes engagement, and engagement over the long term is their business model,” he said.
Last year,
an analysis by The Washington Post found that Elon Musk’s Twitter was amplifying hate speech in its “For You” timeline, an unintended side effect of an algorithm that is supposed to show users more of what they want.
X, formerly Twitter,
says in its user guidelines that hateful conduct, including attacking people on the basis of race, ethnicity or religious affiliation, is forbidden. A Washington Post request for comment, sent to X’s main media email account, was met with an automated response: “Busy now, please check back later.”
Sunder Katwala, director of the British Futures think tank, said the Southport case demonstrates not only the influence of far-right extremists on social media, but the threat posed by anti-Muslim prejudice in Britain.
By attempting to link Muslim people to specific crimes, far-right groups are hoping to appeal to a broader segment of the population that continues to entertain anti-Muslim stereotypes, Katwala said.
Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, a former top prosecutor, said those who rioted in Southport on Tuesday night will “feel the full force of the law.”
“It is sickening to see this happening within a community that has been devastated by the tragic loss of three young lives,” Alex Goss, assistant chief constable of the Merseyside Police, said in a statement Tuesday. “Our officers and other members of the emergency services were faced with one of the most difficult situations they will ever face. Tonight, they find themselves being attacked as they endeavor to prevent disorder.”
According to the Liverpool Echo news website, Jenni Stancombe, the mother of one of the slain girls, wrote on social media, “This is the only thing that I will write, but please stop the violence in Southport tonight.”
On Wednesday morning, locals with brooms where clearing the streets where the riot took place.
