Hollie Adams/Reuters
CNN —
The widespread anti-immigrant riots in the United Kingdom of the past week, and the false viral claims that fueled them, may be the clearest, most direct example yet of the way unchecked misinformation on social media can produce violence and harm in the real world.
Even after authorities identified a UK national as the suspect behind a series of deadly stabbings targeting children, false claims about the attacker’s name and origins continued to stoke anti-immigrant fervor and propel far-right demonstrations.
The fake claims have circulated widely, particularly on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, extremism researchers said. And police have openly blamed that misinformation for the violence that has wracked the country in recent days, with rioters throwing bricks at mosques, setting cars on fire and chanting anti-Islamic slogans while clashing with officers in riot gear.
The events of the past week are hardly the only example of the link between online misinformation and politically motivated violence: From the Rohingya genocide to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, false and misleading claims have consistently been at the center of high-profile incidences of political unrest and violence.
It is a pattern that keeps repeating despite years of calls by governments and civil society groups for social media platforms to rein in inflammatory, hateful posts, as well as pledges by companies themselves to do more.
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