Foreign state actors may be amplifying online disinformation that has fuelled a week of riots on the streets of Britain, Downing Street has suggested.
Russian state media were among those sharing false claims that the suspect accused of killing three young girls in Southport last Monday was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat.
Channel3Now, which purports to be a legitimate American news outlet but acts as an “aggregator” for fake claims, wrongly named the attacker as Ali Al-Shakati, believed to be a fictitious name. The subsequent unrest has prompted calls for greater efforts in the fight against fake news.
Asked whether foreign states were behind the spread of disinformation online, Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman said: “I think some of this is public information that clearly we have seen bot activity online, much of which may well be amplified with the involvement of state actors amplifying some of the disinformation and misinformation that we’ve seen.
“And that is something that the NCA [National Crime Agency] and DSIT [Department for Science, Innovation and Technology] are looking at in relation to what we’ve seen online. I obviously can’t get into more detail than that, but it is clearly something that is being looked at.”
The spokesman declined to single out any particular states, but added: “The disinformation that we’ve seen online attracts amplification from known bot activity, which, as I say, can be linked to state-backed activity.”
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