Website behind UK riots misinformation traced to Lahore: report

According to an ITV investigation, Farhan Asif, a Pakistani national, has been identified as the individual behind Channel3Now, a controversial website that spread misinformation and contributed to the recent social unrest in Britain.

The website was implicated in disseminating false information following the Southport stabbings, which incited violence and disorder in several UK cities. ITV's investigation revealed that the operations of Channel3Now were traced back to Asif, who was approached by journalists at his estate in Pakistan.

Hours after being approached by ITV, the website was taken offline. Channel3Now had reported that the attacker in the Southport incident was a 17-year-old Muslim migrant named Ali al-Shakati, who supposedly arrived in the UK by boat and was on an MI6 watch list.

This false claim, widely shared on social media, ignited tensions and led to violent disturbances in Southport, London, and Hartlepool.

Farhan Asif denied any responsibility for the subsequent violence, dismissing the impact of the misinformation spread by his website.

"I don’t know how such a small article or a minor Twitter account could cause widespread confusion," Asif told ITV. He further downplayed the role of Channel3Now, attributing the chaos to local actors in the UK.

The obscure website, which masqueraded as an American-style TV channel, regularly published exaggerated and misleading stories.

In this case, the misinformation about the Southport stabbings was picked up and amplified by prominent online figures, including Laurence Fox and former kickboxer Andrew Tate, according to Sunder Katwala, director of the think tank British Future.

These figures were accused of using the false information to stoke division and unrest.

Further investigation by ITV revealed that Asif is linked to a network of websites that promote falsehoods, including Fox3Now and Fox7Now, which share common advertising accounts and similar content.

These sites, which also feature near-identical logos and layouts, have been involved in spreading misleading information in the past. For instance, Fox3Now falsely reported a gunman on the loose in Jersey City in 2022, causing public panic. The sounds claimed to be gunfire were later revealed to be from a faulty popcorn machine.

Asif claimed to be a freelance writer focused on US crime stories, denying direct involvement with the Southport article. However, records unearthed by ITV indicate that Asif played a significant role in these websites, which have faced legal action for intellectual property violations by the American broadcaster Fox. Court documents named Asif as one of the owners, citing "plausible evidence" of common control over the disputed domain names.

Despite Asif’s denials, the investigation suggests a deeper involvement in the network of sites responsible for spreading harmful falsehoods.

Following the Southport incident, Asif mentioned that the controversial article was quickly deleted, and an apology was issued. He claimed that the staff responsible for the mistake had been fired.

Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has also come under scrutiny, particularly since its acquisition by Elon Musk.

Critics argue that Musk’s approach to content moderation and his emphasis on "absolute free speech" have contributed to the proliferation of harmful content, including the misinformation spread by sites like Channel3Now.

How misinformation fueled tension over Britain stabbing attack

Within hours of a stabbing attack in northwest England that killed three young girls and wounded several more children, a false name of a supposed suspect was circulating on social media. Hours after that, violent protesters were clashing with police outside a nearby mosque — the first of several violent protests in across England.

Police say the name was fake, as were rumours that the 17-year-old suspect was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in Britain. The suspect charged with murder and attempted murder was named Thursday as Axel Rudakubana, born in the UK to Rwandan parents.

By the time a judge said the teen suspect could be identified, rumors already were rife and right-wing influencers had pinned the blame on immigrants and Muslims.

“There’s a parallel universe where what was claimed by these rumors were the actual facts of the case,” said Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think tank that looks at issues including integration and national identity. “And that will be a difficult thing to manage.”

Local lawmaker Patrick Hurley said the result was “hundreds of people descending on the town, descending on Southport from outside of the area, intent on causing trouble — either because they believe what they’ve written, or because they are bad faith actors who wrote it in the first place, in the hope of causing community division.”

One of the first outlets to report the false name, Ali Al-Shakati, was Channel 3 Now, an account on the X social media platform that purports to be a news channel. A Facebook page of the same name says it is managed by people in Pakistan and the US. A related website on Wednesday showed a mix of possibly AI-generated news and entertainment stories, as well as an apology for “the misleading information” in its article on the Southport stabbings.

By the time the apology was posted, the incorrect identification had been repeated widely on social media.

Governments around the world, including Britain’s, are struggling with how to curb toxic material online. UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Tuesday that social media companies “need to take some responsibility” for the content on their sites.

Katwala said that social platforms such as Facebook and X worked to “de-amplify” false information in real time after mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

Since Elon Musk, a self-styled free-speech champion, bought X, it has gutted teams that once fought misinformation on the platform and restored the accounts of banned conspiracy theories and extremists.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned social media companies that crime is “happening on your premises.”

Over 1,000 people have been arrested and nearly 600 charged in connection with the far-right riots that erupted across the UK following a stabbing incident in Southport on July 29. 

The UK has seen a surge in charges as authorities respond to the violent riots, which were fueled by false online claims that the suspect in the fatal stabbing of three children in Southport was a Muslim asylum seeker. The attacker, identified as Axel Rudakubana, a 17-year-old from Cardiff with Rwandan parents, has done little to deter the far-right mobs.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed swift justice for those involved, and the National Police Chiefs' Council anticipates that arrests and charges will continue to rise as investigations proceed. 

On August 7, three men became the first individuals to be jailed for their involvement in the Southport and Liverpool riots. Prosecutors have warned that these cases represent only "the tip of the iceberg" as the crackdown on rioters continues.

Julie Sweeney, 53, was sentenced to 15 months in prison on August 16 for posting inflammatory messages on Facebook, including a post that read, "Blow the mosque up with the adults in it." Judge Steven Everett criticized Sweeney’s online conduct, stating that "keyboard warriors" must be held accountable for their language, especially amidst the ongoing national disorder.

Sweeney follows Jordan Parlour, who was sentenced to 20 months in jail last week for urging attacks on a hotel housing asylum seekers. Parlour, along with Tyler Kay, who was also jailed for similar posts, is among the first to be imprisoned for social media activity related to the far-right riots.

Reece Greenwood, 31, who live-streamed racial slurs during riots in Sunderland, received a 2.5-year prison sentence for violent disorder.