What do a British businesswoman, a Pakistani newsmaker, a foreign country, and a cigar-puffing kickboxer have in common? It might seem like the beginning of a joke, but it’s no laughing matter for the Punjab Police, which is currently investigating links between these disparate individuals, how they may have contributed to one of the UK’s most violent riots in recent memory, and exposed the extreme vulnerability of British Muslims and their places of worship.
England was hit by a series of race riots earlier this month after the tragic stabbings of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party on July 29. The teenager charged with the murders was identified as Axel Rudakubana, whose identity was disclosed after an exceptional court ruling.
But before that, far-right extremist elements spread the narrative that the stabbings were committed by an undocumented Muslim immigrant, who was on a terror watch list.
Studies show that this falsehood was viewed over 420,000 times on social media platforms, with a reach of more than 1.7 billion, becoming a lightning rod for Islamophobic anti-immigrant vitriol, which set off a firestorm of attacks resulting in numerous loss of lives, threats to blow up mosques, as well as major property damage.
On the surface of it, the four individuals mentioned at the beginning of this piece share very little in common. Yet all of them have played critical roles in instigating the violence, which reflects the sinister nature of digital disinformation, and how it can incite real-world hatred and horror. It also indicates how limited personal accountability is when it comes to the creators and spreaders of false narratives on social media and serves as a cautionary tale to those who believe what they see online without questioning it.
The businesswoman
Bernadette Spofforth is the successful managing director of a clothing company. Her profile on Linkedin states that she is a “forward thinking and creative individual”, who lives an affluent life, residing in a £1.5 million farmhouse in Cheshire. In her personal life, however, she actively comments and advocates for a number of right-wing conservative positions.
She was a prominent campaigner against the Covid lockdowns and net-zero climate schemes, appearing on national television as well. Before deleting her account, she had tens of thousands of followers on X (formerly Twitter) commenting on new developments regularly.
Just hours after three girls were murdered in Southport on July 29, Spofforth wrote on her account on X: “Ali Al-Shakati was the suspect, he was an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year and was on an MI6 watch list. If this is true, then all hell is about to break loose.”
This post, according to a comprehensive investigation by UK’s Daily Mail, was the first to claim that the Southport attacker was a Muslim, an asylum seeker, and on the MI6 watch list. When confronted by the evidence, Spofforth took no responsibility, saying, “I’m mortified that I’m being accused of this. I did not make it up. I first received this information from somebody in Southport.”
However, she did not back this claim with any evidence and deleted her account soon after.
According to the Daily Mail, she deleted this post later, but it didn’t stop the fire from spreading. The post content made its way to other accounts and websites, fanning the flames, and eventually leading to the violence. However, she took no responsibility for what transpired and said: “My post had nothing to do with the violence we’ve seen across the country. But I acknowledge that it may have been the source for the information used by a Russian news website.”
What website was that?
The foreign ‘adversary’
Enter Channel3Now, a media outlet regularly posting click-bait news content designed to engage and spread. Research analysts say that clickbait sites like Channel3Now are actively involved in using trigger events — of significant national prominence — to generate content that is made to engage the reader/viewer at an emotional level rather than through factual information. Channel3Now is no different, using its website and social media accounts to run sensationalist headlines and stories, with or without evidence.
With outlets like these, it is very common for their staff to pick up on the chatter on social media, and use it to develop their content. Their logic is simple: if it’s already spreading on social media, we need to ride the wave to build our own engagement. The Spofforth post, which had become viral by then, was picked up by Channel3Now’s social media accounts, once again naming the stabbing suspect as a Muslim asylum seeker who was on the MI6 watch list. The post was viewed nearly two million times before it was deleted.
Making the waters even murkier, another research article by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) revealed that the website claims to be based in the US, but actually started 11 years ago as a Russian-run YouTube channel that posted videos of rally driving in the country.
“The YouTube channel had not posted Russian-language content for 11 years, and could have been bought and repurposed by unknown actors. Channel3 News’ website was created in the summer of 2023, and one of four Facebook pages that use the same name and branding was repurposed twice — once in 2023 and again in May 2024, when it became ‘Channel3 Now’. This page’s administrators are based in Pakistan and the United States….The website itself employs a US-based company that cloaks IP addresses — a common tactic used by online actors trying to conceal their identities,” it said.
The Russian angle is not entirely confirmed, though TBIJ and Daily Mail have both made this claim. But this is not a new phenomenon even if true. Russian sock-puppet media outlets have previously used disinformation in the Westminster and Salisbury Novichok attacks.
Instead, what is of interest is: who was running the site. Because the connection doesn’t end at Moscow. It ends in Lahore. Which is why the Punjab Police is currently involved.
The Pakistani newsmaker
A major investigation by UK’s ITV news, which featured a field trip to Pakistan, ended with the residence of a Lahore-based man who claims to be an independent journalist and is the administrator of Channel3Now. BBC’s investigation also uncovered him as the key person behind the scenes. It has come as a shock that the Southport riots, which have largely targeted British Muslims, including British Pakistanis, were incited by a media outlet partially run from Pakistan.
The man in question claims to be an independent journalist who mostly covers crimes in the US. The media outlets also found his links to multiple other clickbait news accounts, including Fox3Now and Fox7Now, which claim to be American news sites, but are clearly impersonating other major news websites. In fact, Fox3Now and Fox7Now were subject to legal action last year when the American broadcaster Fox successfully fought to regain control of the web addresses on intellectual property grounds.
Fox3Now has been involved in its own share of clickbait-driven disinformation. In 2022, its account sent out a tweet claiming that an active shooting was taking place at Newport Centre Mall in Jersey City, US. The post went viral on X, leading to mass panic, with mall visitors describing the incident as “terrifying”. The post wasn’t taken down until almost two hours later, with the media site admitting there was no active shooter. The sounds which the site claimed to be gunfire were in fact caused by a faulty popcorn machine.
Interestingly, Fox3Now wasn’t the only one spreading this. Other affiliated accounts also ran the same story, including Channel3Now, showing a synergistic relationship between the ‘news’ outlets.
