What do a British businesswoman, a Pakistani newsmaker, a foreign country, and a cigar-puffing kickboxer have in common? It might seem like the beginning of a joke, but it’s no laughing matter for the Punjab Police, which is currently investigating links between these disparate individuals, how they may have contributed to one of the UK’s most violent riots in recent memory, and exposed the extreme vulnerability of British Muslims and their places of worship.

England was hit by a series of race riots earlier this month after the tragic stabbings of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party on July 29. The teenager charged with the murders was identified as Axel Rudakubana, whose identity was disclosed after an exceptional court ruling.

But before that, far-right extremist elements spread the narrative that the stabbings were committed by an undocumented Muslim immigrant, who was on a terror watch list.

Studies show that this falsehood was viewed over 420,000 times on social media platforms, with a reach of more than 1.7 billion, becoming a lightning rod for Islamophobic anti-immigrant vitriol, which set off a firestorm of attacks resulting in numerous loss of lives, threats to blow up mosques, as well as major property damage.

On the surface of it, the four individuals mentioned at the beginning of this piece share very little in common. Yet all of them have played critical roles in instigating the violence, which reflects the sinister nature of digital disinformation, and how it can incite real-world hatred and horror. It also indicates how limited personal accountability is when it comes to the creators and spreaders of false narratives on social media and serves as a cautionary tale to those who believe what they see online without questioning it.

The businesswoman

Bernadette Spofforth is the successful managing director of a clothing company. Her profile on Linkedin states that she is a “forward thinking and creative individual”, who lives an affluent life, residing in a £1.5 million farmhouse in Cheshire. In her personal life, however, she actively comments and advocates for a number of right-wing conservative positions.

She was a prominent campaigner against the Covid lockdowns and net-zero climate schemes, appearing on national television as well. Before deleting her account, she had tens of thousands of followers on X (formerly Twitter) commenting on new developments regularly.

Just hours after three girls were murdered in Southport on July 29, Spofforth wrote on her account on X: “Ali Al-Shakati was the suspect, he was an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year and was on an MI6 watch list. If this is true, then all hell is about to break loose.”

This post, according to a comprehensive investigation by UK’s Daily Mail, was the first to claim that the Southport attacker was a Muslim, an asylum seeker, and on the MI6 watch list. When confronted by the evidence, Spofforth took no responsibility, saying, “I’m mortified that I’m being accused of this. I did not make it up. I first received this information from somebody in Southport.”

However, she did not back this claim with any evidence and deleted her account soon after.

According to the Daily Mail, she deleted this post later, but it didn’t stop the fire from spreading. The post content made its way to other accounts and websites, fanning the flames, and eventually leading to the violence. However, she took no responsibility for what transpired and said: “My post had nothing to do with the violence we’ve seen across the country. But I acknowledge that it may have been the source for the information used by a Russian news website.”

What website was that?

The foreign ‘adversary’

Enter Channel3Now, a media outlet regularly posting click-bait news content designed to engage and spread. Research analysts say that clickbait sites like Channel3Now are actively involved in using trigger events — of significant national prominence — to generate content that is made to engage the reader/viewer at an emotional level rather than through factual information. Channel3Now is no different, using its website and social media accounts to run sensationalist headlines and stories, with or without evidence.

With outlets like these, it is very common for their staff to pick up on the chatter on social media, and use it to develop their content. Their logic is simple: if it’s already spreading on social media, we need to ride the wave to build our own engagement. The Spofforth post, which had become viral by then, was picked up by Channel3Now’s social media accounts, once again naming the stabbing suspect as a Muslim asylum seeker who was on the MI6 watch list. The post was viewed nearly two million times before it was deleted.

Making the waters even murkier, another research article by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) revealed that the website claims to be based in the US, but actually started 11 years ago as a Russian-run YouTube channel that posted videos of rally driving in the country.

“The YouTube channel had not posted Russian-language content for 11 years, and could have been bought and repurposed by unknown actors. Channel3 News’ website was created in the summer of 2023, and one of four Facebook pages that use the same name and branding was repurposed twice — once in 2023 and again in May 2024, when it became ‘Channel3 Now’. This page’s administrators are based in Pakistan and the United States….The website itself employs a US-based company that cloaks IP addresses — a common tactic used by online actors trying to conceal their identities,” it said.

The Russian angle is not entirely confirmed, though TBIJ and Daily Mail have both made this claim. But this is not a new phenomenon even if true. Russian sock-puppet media outlets have previously used disinformation in the Westminster and Salisbury Novichok attacks.

Instead, what is of interest is: who was running the site. Because the connection doesn’t end at Moscow. It ends in Lahore. Which is why the Punjab Police is currently involved.

The Pakistani newsmaker

A major investigation by UK’s ITV news, which featured a field trip to Pakistan, ended with the residence of a Lahore-based man who claims to be an independent journalist and is the administrator of Channel3Now. BBC’s investigation also uncovered him as the key person behind the scenes. It has come as a shock that the Southport riots, which have largely targeted British Muslims, including British Pakistanis, were incited by a media outlet partially run from Pakistan.

The man in question claims to be an independent journalist who mostly covers crimes in the US. The media outlets also found his links to multiple other clickbait news accounts, including Fox3Now and Fox7Now, which claim to be American news sites, but are clearly impersonating other major news websites. In fact, Fox3Now and Fox7Now were subject to legal action last year when the American broadcaster Fox successfully fought to regain control of the web addresses on intellectual property grounds.

Fox3Now has been involved in its own share of clickbait-driven disinformation. In 2022, its account sent out a tweet claiming that an active shooting was taking place at Newport Centre Mall in Jersey City, US. The post went viral on X, leading to mass panic, with mall visitors describing the incident as “terrifying”. The post wasn’t taken down until almost two hours later, with the media site admitting there was no active shooter. The sounds which the site claimed to be gunfire were in fact caused by a faulty popcorn machine.

Interestingly, Fox3Now wasn’t the only one spreading this. Other affiliated accounts also ran the same story, including Channel3Now, showing a synergistic relationship between the ‘news’ outlets.

The same occurred in the case of the Southport attacks. Due to the rumours swirling on the identity of the attacker, Channel3Now picked up on the posts being shared online and used them to develop its own breaking news story.

The story remained on its website till July 30, when its headlines removed any mention of ‘Ali al-Shakati’, or the stabber being an alleged asylum seeker. Moreover, a screenshot of the website, obtained from Wayback Machine, shows that the same day, a new story titled “Southport stabbing suspect 17 year old-born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents” was posted, while the original story “17 year old boy arrested in connection with the stabbings in Southport, England” — which was posted 19 hours earlier — mysteriously edited out any mention of Ali al-Shakati.

However, digital forensic analysis shows that the URL or weblink of the original story continued to reference Ali al-Shakati.

Despite attempts by the Channel3Now team to remove any connection to the article, they remained unsuccessful, prompting the outlet to issue an apology on July 31. But by that point, it was too late to stop the rumour mill and the violence that followed.

ITV and BBC independently investigated the administrators behind the site, and tracked down the Pakistan-based journalist. When confronted with the evidence, he continued to maintain that the article had nothing to do with the violence, saying: “Ek chotay se article se itna ishtiaal kaisay phail sakta hai?” (How can so much chaos be spread by such a small article?).

He instead blamed the people of the UK for not addressing the misinformation “peacefully” and causing mayhem. At the same time, he also stated that he had nothing to do with the article and that it was posted by his UK-based staff, who have been fired. Nonetheless, Lahore Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Faisal Kamran has stated that the Punjab Police is analysing the claims made by ITV News and has initiated a probe.

The kickboxer

Despite Channel3Now’s attempts at damage control, the real damage was only starting. High-profile users on X, particularly those associated with the far-right, including anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson and former GB News presenter Laurence Fox, began to share the rumour as if it was a fact.

The major source of this was Andrew Tate, an infamous British-American kickboxer turned influencer, who is known for his extreme misogynistic views. In a series of posts, Tate, citing the ‘illegal migrant’ rumour, blamed the government for being soft on immigrants and claimed that the Western civilisation was under threat.

A series of inflammatory posts, all citing this disinformation, went to his nearly 10 million followers from X, and from there to millions in the UK. In fact, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, arguably the most outspoken right-wing politician in the country, cites Tate as his source for the information.

It’s important to note that Tate’s posts have still not been taken down. So obviously he was remorseful, right? Nope. On August 8, Tate appeared on a news show on YouTube, where he was asked point blank if he would apologise for spreading falsehoods. Not only did Tate refuse to apologise, but he said he wasn’t wrong about the story, except for the ‘illegal’ part. He also said that he had no reason to target Muslims, given that he was a proud Muslim himself.

Like others, he too refused to take responsibility for the violence that ensued.

The aftermath

The digital narratives of the Southport riots reveal two tragedies.

The first is about the propensity of online falsehoods to stoke violence in the real world. A rumour which began from a minor influencer’s account led to widespread panic and anger directed towards communities which had nothing to do with the original attack, without confirmation from reputable sources.

Psychologists refer to this as “confirmation bias”, whereby we are more likely to believe stories that align with our worldview and reject those that do not. Social media has accelerated this process, creating echo chambers where people with the same views corroborate each other and spread the same content among themselves while denying or rejecting any contradicting information. It explains why disinformation is not an individual-led effort, but rather a community-led one, and demonstrates the ease at which false information can do so much damage before it is stopped. We have seen several examples of this.

The second tragedy is the lack of responsibility from the key actors involved in this farce. The Cheshire-based businesswoman claimed she heard the rumour from somewhere, and posted it without verification. Yet, she stated that she was not responsible for what happened.

The Lahore-based investigative journalist said a small article cannot lead to such violence. And, the British-American kickboxer/influencer claimed that what he spread remains embroiled in truth because of the larger pattern of migrant crimes. It’s not without a hint of irony that two of these actors, who helped create the fiasco that has made millions of Muslims insecure in the UK, are proud Muslims themselves.

In all these cases, there is a tendency to absolve the self from the heinous nature of what followed. One may call it denial, a kneejerk response to legal action, or just a general lack of introspection and personal accountability. But it is nonetheless reflective of our general attitudes towards consuming information on social media, where we believe first and analyse last.

It remains the quintessential approach that prevents us from taking any responsibility for believing and sharing false information. Yet each of these individuals, in their own way, played a crucial part in stoking the flames that led to the riots, and that is undeniable. Falsehoods, and their ability to instigate such horror, is no joke.