The spread of misinformation during the post-Southport riots was “turbo-charged” by foreign bots, the police officer in charge of UK counter-terrorism has revealed
Russia is believed to be the main architect behind the widespread flood of misinformation that flooded social media sites but other rogue states are also believed to have been involved.
Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes also slammed “unhelpful” domestic commentators who have been spreading conspiracy’s of cover-ups despite knowing that police cannot release certain information during ongoing court proceedings.
The latest figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council show policing disorder over the summer cost UK taxpayers a staggering £31.7million.
The role of misinformation online has also been shown to fuel actions of increasingly younger demographic, as it’s revealed that 17% of those arrested in relation to the riots were under the age of 18.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is among those who have made allegations there has been a cover-up over the Southport murders.
So far 1,590 people have been arrested, of whom 17% were children aged 17 or under.
Speaking at a policing conference in Westminster on Wednesday, Mr Jukes said: “The vast majority of that messaging, which was problematic online, was domestic, driven by people who lived in our communities, who were stoking fear in those communities.
“But we have seen that turbo-charged by bots online. And so as we were tracking the amount of traffic, hateful traffic, during the 24-hour period across the days, we would see tremendous spikes as around midnight, bots kicked in.
“And we would just see that the amplification, automation of that reach of those messages which were at times hateful, at times misinformation.”
A small percentage of the arrests linked to the disorder were for online offences, while the rest were for disorder or violence in real life.
Mr Jukes added: “There’s a legend which has emerged that the thought police were out arresting hundreds and hundreds of people for having opinions.
“And the reality is the hundreds and hundreds of people who were arrested were arrested because of their suspected involvement in violence, criminal damage, direct harms in communities.”
He also hit out at commentators online who have claimed information has been covered up about the Southport investigation.
“We do need responsible commentators,” Mr Jukes said. “It is unhelpful when people who I suspect fully well know what the constraints are on reporting during ongoing legal proceedings, point to limited disclosures or limits on what can be said as evidence of cover up and conspiracy.”
He also called on social media platforms to take responsibility for misinformation.
He added: “As well as responsible ownership of technology companies and the international work of government to stop misinformation spreading online, we need to equip people to know how to deal with false information.
“It’s too late to wait to de-bunk misinformation that has real-world consequences, we need to get into classrooms so we can ‘pre-bunk’ and teach young people how to respond to this online content.”
