The UK announced a first conviction for inciting racial hatred online during riots

In light of the ongoing riots, the UK has announced its first conviction for inciting racial hatred in social media posts. This was reported on SkyNews.

Conviction for inciting racial hatred in social media posts

A 28-year-old man named Jordan Parlor was found guilty of inciting racial hatred for his Facebook posts in which he justified the rioters’ attack on a hotel in Leeds where asylum seekers were being housed. He did not appear at the hotel, as far as we know.

The man has pleaded guilty and is awaiting a verdict on Friday.

Protests and riots in the UK have been going on for a week following the mass murder of children in the town of Southport. The riots with anti-immigrant slogans began with false rumors that the teenage attacker had allegedly recently arrived in the country as an asylum seeker and was a Muslim. 

The revelation of the boy’s identity, who was actually from Rwanda but was born in the UK, did not help calm the situation.

The government promised tough measures against the rioters and said it was creating 500 additional prison beds. Courts have already tried dozens of captured rioters, some of whom were minors.

Southport attack and disinformation

The attack, which shook all of the United Kingdom, took place on the morning of July 29, near the center of Southport. A 17-year-old boy wearing a mask and carrying a knife came to a dance classroom and began attacking everyone present, both children and adults.

Two girls, ages six and seven, passed away immediately. Another girl, aged nine, died the next day in the hospital. Eight children sustained injuries, with five of them in critical condition.

Immediately after the attack, English-language social media accounts began to circulate the name of the alleged attacker, Ali Al-Shakati, who “arrived in the UK by boat last year” and was under surveillance by the security services.

The clear implication was that he was a Muslim immigrant, so there should be no doubt why he attacked Christian children with a knife.

This provoked the riots that have been going on in various British cities for the past week.

Even the official announcement on Thursday, August 1, of the detainee’s name—Axel Rudakubana, born in Cardiff, central Wales, and whose parents are from Rwanda—did not improve the situation.

It is difficult to establish where the story about Ali al-Shakati began. A Twitter account named Bernie Spofforth, known for spreading conspiracy theories about climate change and the coronavirus, served as one of the initial sources of this disinformation.

Other well-known X (Twitter) users picked up this controversial post and shared it.

Channel3 Now’s role

Although it was less prominent, a dubious website named Channel3 Now also played a role. Social media referenced its (now deleted) news, which contained allegations about the attacker in Southport.

Channel 3 Now’s history dates back to 2012. Back then, it was a YouTube channel that published videos of car races from… Izhevsk, Russia.

“The video mentions drivers working in Russia’s defense and IT industries. One of them is a man who is believed to have been a former KGB operative and later worked in the Russian parliament,” the Daily Mail wrote.

The YouTube channel changed several names until it became Channel 3 Now. It launched a website with a Lithuanian domain name in June 2023, purportedly managed from Pakistan or the US. The website also changed its name from time to time.

Notably, RT, the flagship of Russian state propaganda, almost immediately referenced Channel 3 Now’s article about Ali al-Shakati.

Later, the Russian propaganda media refuted this statement, but the false claim had already been widely disseminated.

It’s difficult to say for sure, but Channel 3 Now’s behavior fits the logic of a Russian disinformation campaign.