Southport Violence: ‘We All Need To Consider Our Role in the Wild West of Social Media Hypercriminality’

The devastating consequences of fake news and ‘crime-as-clickbait’ on victims and communities was on full display as riots spilled across the streets of Southport last night.

Residents were under siege as far-right thugs turned a vigil held in the memory of Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, and Alice Aguiar – who were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop – and another five little souls fighting for their lives, into a pitch battle with police. Their justification? Several prominent influencers and fake news sites falsely claimed that their attacker was a Muslim refugee.

Those with large followings who spread misinformation within hours of the attack included misogynistic hate preacher Andrew Tate; MMA fighter Anthony Fowler; controversial actor-turned-right-wing activist Laurence Fox; anonymous far-right social media profiles ‘End Wokeness’ and ‘European Invasion’; and inevitably, Islamophobic grifter Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (known as ‘Tommy Robinson’).

All showed little regard for the consequences on a grieving community or how false information might add to the torment of the families. Police have since confirmed that the suspect was born in Cardiff and that he has no known links to Islam.

Key elements of misinformation originated in a post by ‘Channel 3 News’, which claims to be an American site but is hosted in Pakistan. At best, fake news as clickbait, and at worst a politicised attempt to stoke division, it included a vaguely Arabic-sounding phrase presented as a name and claimed that the suspect was on a “M16 watchlist”. Despite the fact that MI5 deals with domestic security and that the name was a nonsense, it was mindlessly shared on and on. 

Those fuelling hate are making crime journalism a growing political and social force for ill. But by sharing fake news, countless social media users also unwittingly played a part in the events that led to 39 police officers being injured by rioters in Southport. As a result, at a time when she should have been able to grieve in peace, Elsie Dot’s mother felt that she had to take to social media in a desperate plea for calm.

“This is the only thing that I will write, but please stop the violence in Southport tonight,” she wrote. “The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”

Participatory public crime cultures are nothing new.

As far back as the 16th Century, baying mobs would cheer on-street punishments and sometimes attack suspected criminals, particularly if they were Catholic or Jewish. Newspapers throughout the 19th Century reported apocalyptic scenes of a spectacular mob who, according to scholar Ian Haywood, was “savage, recidivist, mindless, instinctual and depraved”. There were discussions of how “rumours spread” among the crowd and how the mob turned on police.

Now algorithmic amplification on social media platforms means that false news spreads and images of mob violence can encourage more people to join in.

Such dynamics of “hypercriminality” – whereby sensational digital crime content fuels real criminality and vice versa – mean that we need a drastic rethink of the codes of practice for the production for journalistic crime content production across news, documentary, podcast, and social media platforms. Producers must consider the political, social, and representational dimensions of their work, and we need a reset of relationships with the police to tackle misinformation and prioritise victims.

The use of human suffering as clickbait is growing, particularly when there is graphic video footage or images, because the returns are ever more immediate. Journalists are praised for stories that have the greatest clicks, and screens in newsrooms highlight the most popular of the day. Advertising teams use these stats to sell space. 

Many mainstream news organisations have blundered into use without thinking through the consequences.

In December 2021, for example, scores used footage of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes as he begged for help and struggled to walk in the days before his death. This sat alongside advertising for Black Friday sales and garden centres, placed there by those who pitch advertising on the basis that content will ‘get clicks’.

Some of the most jarring recent examples of fake news and crime-as-clickbait proved not to be crimes, but still caused immense suffering. The family of Nicola Bulley, for example, said that “wildly inaccurate speculation” online after her death added to their suffering and urged the public to ignore any “amateur views and opinions and be mindful of the impact words bring”.

On TikTok yesterday, dozens of so-called ‘crime influencers’ circulated fake names and details that they could ‘reveal’ about the attack. Some seem simply made up and others based on rumour and conjecture gathered from other platforms. Many shared images from the scene, blending breaking crime news with personal narratives. All was primarily for financial gain.

As the Wild West of hypercriminality expands the image-led spectacles that have long been part of tabloid crime cultures, audiences are also now part of dissemination and production in ways that collapse temporal and geographical boundaries with the click of a screen.

And as participants in the cacophony and carnival of crime content, we too have responsibilities to the real people caught up in it. We must think about the algorithmic advantages we give when we click, share, and comment.

As the smoke slowly clears in Southport today, thousands of social media accounts still try to fan the flames.

Some suggest that police denials and even the law preventing the naming of child suspects are part of a cover-up. Andrew Tate’s video and post in which he declared that the suspect was an “illegal migrant” is still on X (formerly Twitter), and those who share it show little awareness of how he helps legitimise an epidemic of violence against women and girls that makes attacks on them more likely. Meanwhile, Yaxley-Lennon hides from the courts but uses this as another moment to raise money for his brand.

Social media companies do too little to tackle misinformation and to confront how their algorithms amplify such voices. None demonstrate any real care for the families of the Southport victims.

And so, it falls to all of us – not just those paid to produce content – to make a change. 

Taylor Swift fans around the world are raising money in their memory for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. But this beautiful act is all but lost in the scrum of far-right violent men making this tragedy all about them.

As social media users, we can all start making more ethical and mindful decisions about the content we click on and share right now. Let’s share the acts of love instead of those that want to fuel hate.

Dr Bethany Usher is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at Newcastle University, and the author of ‘Journalism and Crime’. She is hosting a series of free in-person and online events on producer and audience ethical responsibility this autumn, which can be booked by visiting www.bethanyusher.com