<
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/03/obscure-russian-linked-news-outlet-fuelling-violence/>
"Before the fire and fury in Southport, there was a name – Ali Al-Shakati.
Al-Shakati has never existed, we now know, but that didn’t stop an obscure,
Russian-linked fake news outlet from naming him as a 17-year-old supposedly
Muslim asylum seeker responsible for the murder of three schoolgirls in the
town on Monday.
Channel3 Now, a website that masquerades as a legitimate American news outlet
but acts as an “aggregator” for real news stories as well as fake viral claims,
published the claim on the back of speculation which appeared to have started
on X, formerly known as Twitter.
What had begun as a trickle then became a flood, sending the conspiracy theory
pouring out through social media anew, where the name was boosted by thousands
of other Russia-linked accounts before being repeated by authentic Russian
state media, which cited
Channel3 Now in its reporting.
The claim was meanwhile picked up by far-Right figures such as Tommy Robinson –
founder of the anti-immigrant English Defence League, which played a major role
in instigating the riots in Southport and elsewhere this week – and notorious
influencer Andrew Tate, whose posts about Al-Shakati garnered millions of views
and hundreds of thousands of likes.
By Tuesday, the conspiracy had gone mainstream, propelled by the likes of
entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne who claimed in a post online that “maybe [Tommy
Robinson] was right all along” about the risks posed by Muslim immigrants,
before later deleting the remarks. And as news of the attacker’s supposed
identity spread, anger grew, sparking the riots that rocked the Merseyside town
that evening before spreading out across the country.
Police were later forced to confirm that the suspect’s supposed name was false.
On Thursday, the real suspect was named in court as Axel Rudakubana, who was
born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents in 2006."
Via Violet Blue’s
Cybersecurity Roundup: August 6, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/cybersecurity-6-109504337
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
