Posted on 08/03/2024 6:28:38 PM PDT by xxqqzz
LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned social media companies that they must uphold laws that prohibit the incitement of violence online after misinformation around a fatal mass stabbing earlier in the week sparked violent scenes. A 17-year-old boy appeared in an English court on Thursday charged with the murder of three young girls in a knife attack at a summer dance class in Southport that has shocked the nation and sparked two nights of violent protests.
The disturbances followed the rapid spread of false information on social media that the suspect in the stabbings was a radical Islamist migrant, with anti-immigrant protesters descending on Southport from elsewhere, attacking police and targeting a mosque. Starmer said that the disturbances were not legitimate protests, saying it was criminal disorder that was "clearly driven by far-right hatred" before adding a warning to tech companies.
"Let me also say to large social media companies, and those who run them, violent disorder clearly whipped up online: that is also a crime. It's happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere," he said at a news conference, adding there was a "balance to be struck" in handling such platforms. "It's an amazing opportunity that we all enjoy... There is also a responsibility that goes with it. That's a space for a mature conversation to take place."
BLIZZARD OF FALSE INFORMATION Campaign group Hope Not Hate said that the riot in Southport on Tuesday followed a "blizzard of false information around the attack, much of it circulated by far-right accounts online." ...
But a claim that the suspect was an asylum seeker or immigrant has been viewed at least 15.7 million times across X, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms, a Reuters analysis showed.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
OK—so according to the judge what is the ethnicity of the perp?
Would be nice if they paid Sarah’s block a visit.
If you mean is he Hutu or Tutsi, no idea. Few refugees from the genocide reached the UK. Most went to francophone countries.
Incidentally I take your original point, which illustrates the difficulties of reconciling domestic law with a social media which knows no boundaries.
Britain proves that when the priviledge of voting is handed to all citizens they vote in those who promise FREE STUFF...i.e. socialists/marxists/liberals.
The white males I see in Reuters and Daily Mail photographs, that are on the front lines facing off with the police, obviously know this.
On December 16, 1773, white males calling themselves The Sons of Liberty boarded an East India Company ship in Boston Harbor and threw it’s contents (tea) into the Harbor thus historians have since proclaimed the act to be known forever as The Boston Tea Party.
The same government that got offended by The Sons of Liberty involved in the Boston Tea Party, 251 years later, is now threatening it’s own Sons of Liberty fighting to force marxist/socialist/unpatriot members of parliament to stop immigration in its current form. Go get em boys!
It would be nice if the media and the government told us the facts from the start. It’s their fault for hiding information.
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