As refugee centres are closed amid expected renewed violent protests across the UK on Wednesday, X owner Elon Musk has stoked tensions by calling British Prime Minister Keir Starmer a “#TwoTierKier” and spreading a far-right conspiracy theory that white rioters are cracked down on more harshly by police than minorities.
In recent days, Musk has tried to use his considerable influence to suggest that diversity is causing riots. “When incompatible cultures come together without assimilation, conflict is inevitable,” he wrote. Responding to video of riots in Liverpool on Monday, Musk warned that “civil war is inevitable.”
6,000 police officers are on standby after far-right groups published a list of dozens of targets, including the locations of refugee centers and refugee advocacy lawyers, and authorities are facing resistance from X to removing posts they deem a threat to national security, the Financial Times reported.
After a mass stabbing attack in Southport last week left three children dead and sparked violence, conspiracy theories abounded on social media platforms, including X. But many of the original attack plans were made on Telegram.
A WIRED review of Telegram channels found that far-right channels not only posted information about the locations and times of protests, but also shared tips on how to make Molotov cocktails and set buildings on fire.
But while Musk and X have done little to quell their activities, Telegram appears to have taken action against at least one channel set up to spread hate and disinformation about the Southport stabbing.
The “Southport Wake Up” Telegram channel was set up within hours of last week’s stabbing and quickly attracted a large following. The channel shared details of local protests but quickly began making violent threats naming individuals and places.
On Monday night, Telegram appeared to remove the channel, which at the time had around 15,000 members. It is unclear whether Telegram took the decision on its own or at the direction of British authorities.
The channel’s creator, who was reported to police by researchers but whose name has not been made public, has made several attempts to start new channels, but they have all been shut down within hours of being launched.
Telegram told WIRED that its moderators are “actively monitoring the situation and removing channels and posts that call for violence.”
A Home Office spokesperson told WIRED that they could not comment on whether they had asked Stockport Wakeup to block the Telegram channel as it was an “operational matter”.
In recent years, Telegram’s notoriously lax censorship has seen many far-right figures banned from all other platforms move to the platform, but since Musk took over Twitter in November 2022, many of the formerly banned extremists have been welcomed back, including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, leader of the now-disbanded English Defence League (EDL).
