Police officers attacked and injured and dozens of arrests made after scenes of disorder across country on SaturdayA key factor in this spread of online disinformation involved Elon Musk’s decision to allow rightwing activists such as Tommy Robinson back on to his social media platform X, said Joe Mulhall, director of research at Hope Not Hate, the anti-fascism organisation. “The initial disinformation and anger was being perpetrated by individuals on Twitter, for example, that have been previously deplatformed,” he said. “And now they’ve been replatformed.”Robinson was permanently banned from the platform (then called Twitter) in March 2018, then reinstated in November last year, after Musk bought it. “We hadn’t seen any significant numbers at any demonstrations since 2018,” Mulhall added.We had reports today that two people had been stabbed by Muslims in Stoke – it’s just not true. There’s people out there, not even in this country, circulating and stoking up hatred, division and concerns in communities that they don’t care about, don’t know and don’t understand.”We have our intelligence officers out there [in the community].What we also have is disinformation across social media, which obviously needs to be addressed quickly.”We saw at the very start of this week … the tragic horrific killing of three young children and the injured children … a day of reflection quickly turned into horrific violence, and towards police officers that are there to protect everybody.We will continue keeping up this policing for as long as it takes. We need it to stop, and we need it to stop immediately. We will mobilise immediately. We are 24/7, 365 days a year. We need the public to get behind the police, to get behind the call for this to stop.” Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2024/aug/04/rioting-anti-immigration-violence-uk-news-latest-updates
Author : Amy Sedghi
Publish date : 2024-08-04 08:11:48
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