Right-Wing Respin: The Pakistan Angle in the Disinformation That Ignited the Southport Riots

🧵1/ Thought I'd zoom in on the data from the Southport riots, especially given the recent arrest of a man in Pakistan - which has prompted some commentators & news outlets to use it as an opportunity to target people of colour once again. Let's look at what happened

2/ A man in Pakistan, Farhan Asif, who ran Channel3NowNews, was just arrested for spreading misinfo. Channel3NowNews used the made-up name "Ali Al Shakati," However, contrary to some right-wing i/allusions, Channel3NowNews was NOT the first to tweet this name, or be arrested

3/ The first known person to post the name "Ali Al Shakati" on X was actually Artemisfornow, aka Bernie Spofforth, a wealthy woman from Cheshire. She tweeted the name over an hour before Channel3NowNews. She was arrested over a week ago, and released on bail.

4/ Moreover, at least 18 other accounts on X tweeted the name "Ali Al Shakati" after Spofforth but before Channel3NowNews. Some of these accounts, like @peterstopcrime - got over a thousands RTs. None of these accounts linked back to any content from Channel3NowNews.

5/ because it didn't exist. Farhan Asif claims he copied the news from UK-based social media accounts, though hasn't reported which.. #UkRiots #Disinformation #FactCheck

6/ Now you have people like Reform's @TiceRichard @toadmeister et al entirely misrepresenting the facts. They are using the arrest of Asif to say that Asif was arrested for STARTING the misinfo that led to riots. No legitimate news outlet has claimed he STARTED it.

Richard Tice and Toby Young. Also should be noted that Toby Young - who heads up the Free Speech Union (who have offered to defend Spofforth) is also stating that Asif was the "First" to spread the rumour. This appears to be part of Bernie's defence

8/ But MOST importantly. This is all a red herring. The fake name "Ali Al Shakati' is just ONE component of the anti-muslim/anti-immigrant disinfo. The red dots on the graph indicate all accounts speculating that the attacker was a Muslim or immigrant BEFORE channel3nownews

9/ even tweeted. Tweets speculating that the attacker was Muslim and/or an immigrant had already obtained at least 15 million impressions before channel3nownews tweeted, and also before Bernie tweeted. (Although making up a fake name should is perhaps a more egregious falsehood)

10/ Anyway, it is disturbing but ultimately unsurprising that the right are trying to blame all this on a 'foreigner' from a Muslim majority country. But then again, that's how this all started sadly. #Ukriots #disinformation

** You'll notice one of the most viral and EARLIEST spreaders of disinformation that the attacker was a Muslim is @europeinvasionn . Honestly, if someone should be arrested it should be this account. Check out this thread >

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*** And here's my original thread on Southport disinfo

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****Worth noting Bernie has given multiple conflicting and misleading explanations of where she got the name Ali Al Shakati. It's still not clear if she made the name up or obtained it from somewhere/one else. But here's one example of her misleading yarns

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For those wanting to see Toby Young's interview

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