What role did misinformation play in riots after the Southport stabbings?

After three children were killed in a shocking attack at a Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance class in Southport on Monday, misinformation about the identity of the suspect circulated online, and this week has subsequently seen a number of riots and violent protests in different parts of the country.

But to what extent can misinformation be blamed for fuelling the riots? We’ve taken a look at how some of the false claims spread and why people may be more likely to believe misinformation when such events occur.

What kind of misinformation was shared on social media?

In the aftermath of the attack, a 17-year old male was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. Because of his age, there were reporting restrictions on naming him.

Very quickly an incorrect name, “Ali Al-Shakati”, spread online, alongside claims he had recently come to the UK on a small boat, or was Muslim or Syrian.

Merseyside Police issued a statement explaining “a name has been shared on social media in connection with the suspect in the incident in Southport” and that “this name is incorrect and we would urge people not to speculate on details of the incident while the investigation is ongoing”. 

They told Full Fact “Ali Al-Shakati” was the incorrect name which the statement referred to. A previous statement also said the suspect had been born in Cardiff. 

How violent disorder spread

On Tuesday evening (30 July) unrest broke out in Southport after a vigil to honour the victims of the knife attack. Merseyside Police reportedly said the people behind the violence had been fired up by social media posts.

On Wednesday (31 July) more than 100 people were arrested in central London after police clashed with protesters during a demonstration. Reports said people could be heard chanting phrases such as “stop the boats” and “save our kids”. 

Eight people were also arrested in Hartlepool. In Aldershot around 200 people protested outside a hotel reportedly housing migrants—Hampshire Police said a “minority” present “got involved in criminal activity, throwing objects and subjecting people to racial abuse”.

Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent and firearms commander in the Metropolitan Police, was quoted by the BBC as blaming the disorder on the “reckless” spread of misinformation about the identity of the Southport stabbings suspect. 

On Thursday (1 August) the suspect was named as Axel Muganwa Rudakubana. At a crown court hearing, the judge said an order preventing Rudakubana being named until his 18th birthday, which is next week, would have “little practical effect in terms of protecting the welfare of the defendant or his family” and said the “balance clearly comes down in favour of the public interest in allowing full reporting of these proceedings”.

He also added: “Continuing to prevent full reporting at this stage has a disadvantage of allowing others up to mischief to continue to spread misinformation in a vacuum.”

Rudakubana was remanded in youth custody. 

‘A very complicated mix of different ingredients’

Full Fact has not investigated the origins of the misinformation shared this week in detail, though others, including the BBC, Channel 4, Sky News and the Guardian, have published their own analyses. 

It’s clear though that the X (formerly Twitter) account of Channel 3 Now was among the first to share the false name, though it may have been shared elsewhere too. 

Though the account has fewer than 3,300 followers at the time of writing, it claims to be a legitimate news outlet, which may have helped the claims spread. Channel 3 Now’s origins are unclear, however —its X account appears to suggest it is based in the United States, but there is little further information available on its website.

Channel 3 Now has since removed the post with the false name and apologised. 

Regardless of how false rumours about the suspect’s identity first spread, however, this was only one factor in the violence that subsequently erupted. 

Professor Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University and an expert in the spread of online misinformation, told Full Fact that misinformation played an important role in fuelling the riots, but added: “It’s a very complicated mix of different ingredients that come together.”

“It’s not just the fake name and it’s not just the false rumour. It’s the ways in which that gets represented, circulated, listed and amplified by important figures who should really know better.”

False information soon ends up in personal messaging applications such as WhatsApp, “where news items circulate in smaller groups, often local, perhaps family and friend networks”, said Professor Chadwick. “There is always the risk they will have direct on-the-ground impacts in communities, and that’s exactly what we saw,” he said. 

Speaking on Thursday (1 August), the Prime Minister said that the disturbances were not legitimate protests, but criminal disorder that was “clearly driven by far-right hatred”. He announced a “national capability” will be established to tackle violent disorder and rioters, and warned social media firms they had a responsibility to clamp down on misinformation.

But Professor Chadwick said the “organised far right” is “in some respects a problematic term these days”, because in many cases there are networks of online activists, lacking formal structures. “It’s a very quick and nimble form of response that these people can organise and it doesn’t require that many people to actually engage in it.”

Merseyside Police said the riot in Southport involved “many people who do not live in the Merseyside area or care about the people of Merseyside”, but some local people were also present at the protests. At least one man arrested was from Southport, while another was from nearby Standish, and an update on arrests published by the Liverpool Echo on Friday (2 August) suggested others may also have been local.

“We know that passions are high and ordinary people, who perhaps don’t spend a lot of time using these things, are trying to respond in a way that helps them process these kinds of traumatic events”, Professor Chadwick says. 

“So I think that we’ve got this really toxic blend of different ingredients [...] which kind of comes together and converges. And in this case, it’s a very sad case, because it actually has led to violence. Numerous police are injured. The community itself is picking up the pieces, literally [...] it’s the sort of thing that happens all the time as the result of online misinformation. But this is obviously very close to home, and it’s the kind of thing that we haven’t seen to this extent, not with this intensity and rapidity in the UK.”

At Full Fact we often see people being mistakenly identified as perpetrators or victims during or immediately after significant or shocking news events such as happened in Southport, and we have previously fact checked a number of claims which identified the wrong person in their aftermath. 

During unfolding events it’s essential to consider whether what you see online is accurate, so you can avoid sharing misleading information. 

We have written a number of relevant guides, including help on how to spot misleading images and videos, and created a toolkit to help identify misinformation.