How Online Misinformation Stoked Anti-Migrant Riots in Britain

Britain is facing its worst riots in 13 years, as a wave of violent anti-immigration protests sweep across the country. The uprisings began after the spread of misinformation online about a mass stabbing at a dance class in Southport that killed three young girls and left numerous others injured. 

False reports of the July 29 incident said that the 17-year-old suspect, whose identity was initially concealed due to laws protecting minors, was a Muslim asylum seeker. That incorrect information sparked a wave of far-right protests and counter protests across the U.K. After mounting media pressure, a U.K. judge revealed the name of the suspect as Axel Rudakubana, who has been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales, and is not Muslim.

More than 400 rioters have been arrested in connection with the violent protests, which broke out in predominantly English towns and cities, but also in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Far-right groups were seen looting, attacking police and locals, and performing Nazi salutes in the street. As the mobs chanted “send them home” and “Islam out,” they also destroyed mosques, a library, and graffitied racial slurs on homes.

In some of the more violent instances, rioters stormed hotels housing asylum seekers in the towns of Tamworth, Staffordshire, and Rotherham, Yorkshire. Footage shows men in Rotherham breaking into the hotel, while those outside attempted to set the building alight. Police have identified 100 new far-right rallies that are expected to take place on Wednesday night, including in London neighborhoods, such as North Finchley, Walthamstow, and Brentford.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the violence as “far-right thuggery” and “racist rhetoric,” stopping short of describing the attacks as islamophobic in a TV address. “Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them: Violent disorder, clearly whipped up online—that is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere,” Starmer said. 

Downing Street hosted an emergency COBRA meeting on Monday to coordinate a response with ministers and police officials. Starmer pledged the deployment of a “standing army” of specialist officers to tackle violent outbreaks. 

As U.K. leaders scramble to curb further aggressions, here’s what to know about the riots. 

Where did the riots take place?

Police presence was required at 56 far-right gatherings or heated counter protests on Saturday and Sunday.

At first, unrest broke out on July 30, in Southport near the scene of the dance class stabbing, with hundreds of masked people gathering at a local mosque to throw bricks and rocks at it, as well as torching a police van. 

Wider action coordinated on social media apps soon spread to other towns and cities across the U.K. On Saturday, far-right gatherings took place in Hull, Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Blackpool, and Belfast. Sunday’s violence escalated in Rotherham, Tamworth, Middlesbrough, Bolton, and Weymouth. 

In Rotherham on Sunday, a crowd of around 700 predominantly men began to congregate outside a Holiday Inn Express, home to asylum seekers. The group clashed with police clad in riot gear, throwing chairs and other debris at the officers, before setting a bin on fire and throwing it through a smashed window at the hotel. One video, taken by a migrant trapped inside the hotel and shared by a journalist at The Times, shows a rioter miming the cutting of a neck. The incident saw at least 10 police officers injured but employees and guests were not physically harmed. 

In a similar incident in Tamworth on Sunday, a Holiday Inn that has long housed asylum seekers became a target for enraged attackers. Individuals launched petrol bombs and fireworks at police outside the hotel. Staffordshire Police have described the attacks as "senseless violence" and said that acts of "despicable thuggery" are inexcusable.

Middlesbrough also saw around 300 people gathering at the town’s cenotaph. Scenes of chaos erupted as a group of masked men began marching and smashing windows in their path. In Bolton, rioters holding England flags clashed with a group of counter-protesters. 

Monday saw violence escalating in Plymouth, Darlington, Birmingham, and South Belfast.

How did social media ignite the violence?  

Facebook posts, images shared across Telegram, and lists of national targets forwarded on Whatsapp groups contributed to the organized wave of uprisings that began as an isolated incident in Southport. One claim that an asylum seeker or migrant was responsible for the Southport stabbing reached at least 15.7 million accounts across a number of social media platforms, Reuters reported. A news channel also published an unsubstantiated claim that the attacker had arrived in the U.K. on a small boat, before apologizing for inaccurate reporting. 

Social media is an essential tool for extremist groups to galvanize a “spark to flash,” says Jacob Davey, Director of Policy and Research for Counter-Hate at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. “We wouldn’t see the types of activity we saw over the weekend without it,” he says. 

Davey says that social media creates the background noise and “permissive environment” that enables violent or radical individuals to engage in herd mentality. Isolated incidents, he says, are platformed by high-profile, “deeply cynical actors” who encourage their followers to commit hate crimes and acts of violence. 

In this case, both Tommy Robinson, founder of the far-right group English Defense League, and Nigel Farage, a controversial anti-immigration figure elected to Parliament this year, publicly shared conspiracies that the police force was withholding information about the Southport assailant’s identity as a Muslim or a migrant, before details were released. 

According to Davey, content recommendation systems and algorithms can amplify disinformation to a boiling point. The U.K. has introduced recent online protections under the Online Safety Act 2023, which places certain responsibilities on social media companies to ensure user safety on their platforms. 

Elon Musk, X’s executive chairman and chief technology officer, has responded to scenes emerging from the U.K. riots with multiple tweets that appear to shrug at the effects of online conspiracies. One post saw him simply replying “Insane” to a video of Starmer’s speech holding large social media companies responsible for attacks that brew online. In another, Musk posted "civil war is inevitable" in response to videos of a crowd lighting fires and setting off fireworks. 

Did British immigration anxiety fuel unrest? 

The ongoing riots have brought renewed attention to anxieties about U.K. migration. Stopping the arrival of small boats arriving in Britain was a policy priority for the Labour party and the Conservative party during last month’s election. 

Donna Jones, a Conservative politician and the police and crime commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, has suggested that current unrest is an act of “rebellion” against “mass uncontrolled immigration.” 

“I’ve spoken to people from both sides of the spectrum and the only way to stem the tide of violent disorder is to acknowledge what is causing it,” Jones said, calling the Southport attacks a catalyst. 

Other politicians, such as Charlotte Nichols, Labour MP for Warrington North, have called Jones’ comments “untenable” and drawn a distinction between concerns about immigration, and the legitimization of “thuggery.” 

But rising fears about migration are concentrated in small communities rather than part of a broader trend in British society, says Anand Menon, the director of U.K. in a Changing Europe, a London-based think tank. “If you look at the British people as a whole, what you're talking about is a low levels of concern about immigration, and actually a far more positive view of immigration overall than was the case” in 2016 when 52% of the nation voted to leave the European Union, says Menon.

According to a Ipsos poll on Brits’ attitudes towards immigration, conducted in February, the percentage of people with a positive view towards immigration has decreased since July 2022, but remains overall more positive than negative. In a survey of 3,000 adults, 40% still believe that migration has had a positive impact on the nation, compared with 35% who hold a negative view, 17% who are neutral, and an 8% who did not know.

Correction, Aug. 7

The original version of this story misstated Elon Musk's title at X. He is currently executive chairman and chief technology officer, not CEO.