Fueling Hate: Disinformation Around the Wales Church Fire
Despite police confirmation of the culprits, a viral lie blaming Pakistanis, Muslims and Migrants spread across X and Facebook—boosted by dysinfluencers and political operatives.
Note: You can listen to this here
Fake News Alert: A number of accounts are spreading false information that a church in #Wales was burned down by two Pakistan migrants/muslims. There are other narratives, but this is the dominant one. It is false but has obtained millions of views. some data> #disinfo
It is true that a church did burn down. It was set alight by two local teenagers. The South Wales police have tweeted that other rumours circulating are false - they are of course talking about the false info about the ethnicity of the attackers (right).
The most shared claim comes from 'RadioEuropes'. This is a 'Dysinfluencer' account - an account that repeatedly spreads false and malicious information - in this case xenophobic and anti-Muslim content. You can see its false tweet garnered over 3.6 million views
As
found out, originally a Turkish-language adult content account (“ZelisOzturk1”), RadioEuropes rebranded in early 2024 into a xenophobic propaganda outlet, using reply spam, genAI content, and cross-boosting. In short - griftingWhile the news of the fire broke on 26th April, the first originator of the fake story also appears to be @RadioEuropes - as detailed in this time sequence graph. Paul Golding from Britain First also shared, then deleted the story.
Other key spreaders include conspiracy theorist grifter @RealAlexJones and @ShefVaidya, @ImtiazMadmood, @seriousfunnyguy. Tommy Robinson's 'admin' also mentioned event but didn't attribute blame - more a dog whistle about 'attacks' on Christianity. Same with @HananyaNaftali
The story is being shared a lot on FB, including by an Indian news account called 'Briefly'. Briefly, formerly 'NewJ', has over 2.4 million followers, and is an engagement chop shop - repurposing other ppl's content. Briefly credits @RadioEuropes @TRobinsonNewEra for the vid
Interestingly, Briefly (formerly NEWJ) seem to be a surrogate political advertiser for the BJP. Their MO is – 'to promote the BJP, including by fuelling misinformation, inciting anti-Muslim sentiments and denigrating opposition parties'.
A few other, uhhh, news sites have picked up the fake news, including the 'The President of Loveworld Incorporated, the highly Esteemed Rev. Chris Oyakhilome, Dsc, Dsc, DD. Weird...
Joking aside, this is another attempt at provoking xenophobia and prejudice in Europe by unknown (and also known) entities using anonymous accounts and platform manipulation to promote hate. As you can see, the false news far outstripts truthful accounts in engagement
As we saw with Southport, this kind of thing, at the right time, can have devastating consequences - but this is often agenda-fuelled propaganda, aided and abetted ideologically (in the case of Musk), and perhaps financially (for META)