Isnt social media wonderful! A great reason to delete all social media It started with a tweet. Someone shared the phrase “Ali Al-Shakati”, claiming that this

Isnt social media wonderful! A great reason to delete all social media It started with a tweet. Someone shared the phrase “Ali Al-Shakati”, claiming that this was the name of the 17-year-old attacker who had, supposedly, arrived in the UK by boat and landed on an MI6 watchlist. A fake news outlet with no contactable owners then turned this into an “article”. The article was reposted by well-known far-right figures with large audiences and the fake details were re-shared by both anonymous far-right accounts and far-right adjacent commentators including Laurence Fox and Andrew Tate. There is currently no evidence that the alleged attacker was Muslim or attended the Mosque these men attacked, just as there is nothing to support the Ali Al-Shakati identity. But this does not matter to those who share such misinformation. Whether their aim is to draw traffic to a website, get clicks on social media, promote a dangerous ideology or find an excuse to get bevvied and throw rocks at the police, misinformation is useful. It enables them to take the hate they already feel and pretend that they are protecting their wives, their children and their community.