How TikTok bots and AI fuelled a resurgence of far-right violence in Britain | Far Right

Less than three hours after the stabbing incident that left three children dead on Monday, an AI-generated image was shared on X by an account called Europe Invasion. It depicts bearded men in traditional Muslim dress outside the parliament building, one of whom is wielding a knife behind a crying child wearing a Union Jack T-shirt.

The tweet, which has been viewed more than 900,000 times so far and was captioned “We must protect our children!”, was shared by one of the most powerful accounts spreading misinformation about the Southport stabbing.

AI technology has been used in other ways, too, including an anti-immigration Facebook group that generated images of large crowds gathered in front of the city's gravestones to draw a call for people to attend a vigil in Middlesbrough.

Platforms like Suno, which uses AI to generate music with vocals and instruments, have been used to create online songs that combine references to Southport with xenophobic content. Titles include Southport Saga, which features an AI female voice singing lyrics like “hunt them down anyway.”

Experts have warned that Britain's divided far right is using the Southport attack to consolidate and reclaim its position on the streets, using new tools and ways of organising.

For the first time in years, violent protests have broken out, with more than a dozen demonstrations taking place across the country across social media platforms including X, TikTok, and Facebook.

This week, a far-right group posted death threats against the British Prime Minister, calls for attacks on government property, and extreme anti-Semitism on its Telegram channel.

Amid fears of widespread violence, a leading counter-extremism think tank has warned that the far right risks staging protests on a scale not seen since the Defence League (EDL) took to the streets in the 2010s.

The advent of easily accessible AI tools, which extremists have used to create everything from inflammatory images to songs and music, adds a new dimension.

Andrew Rogoyski, director of the Human-Centered AI Lab at the University of Surrey, said advances in image-generating tools now widely available online meant anyone could create anything.

He added: The ability for anyone to create powerful images using generative AI is a huge concern. Then the onus falls on the providers of such AI models to strengthen the guardrails built into their models to make it harder to create such images.

Joe Mulhall, research director at campaign group Hope Not Hate, said the use of AI-generated data was still in its early stages, but it reflected the growing overlap and collaboration between different individuals and groups online.

While far-right organisations such as Britain First and Patriotic Alternative continue to be at the forefront of mobilisation and agitation, diverse individuals outside of any particular group are equally important.

Mulhall said these movements are made up of thousands of individuals who make small donations of time and sometimes money to work together toward a common political goal, completely outside of traditional organizational structures. These movements have no formal leaders, but rather have nominal leaders who are often drawn from a growing selection of far-right social media influencers.

Some right-wing influencers have used the hashtag #enoughisenough to promote the protests, according to Joe Ondrak, a senior analyst at Logically, a U.K.-based misinformation monitoring company.

What's important, he said, is how the phrase and hashtag have been used in previous anti-immigrant activism.

Analysts have also highlighted the use of bots. Tech Against Terrorism, an initiative launched by a U.N. branch, cited a TikTok account that only began posting content after Monday’s Southport attack.

All of the posts were related to Southport, and most called for protests near the site of the July 30 attack. The spokesperson said the Southport-related posts had accumulated 57,000 views on TikTok alone in a matter of hours, despite having no previous content, suggesting a bot network was actively promoting the material.

Individuals and groups, including far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who fled the country earlier this week ahead of a court hearing, are playing a central role. Others include right-wing activist-turned-actor Laurence Fox and conspiracy theory websites such as Unity News Network (UNN), which have been spreading misinformation in recent days.

On a channel run by UNN on Telegram, commentators on the largely uncensored messaging platform celebrated the violence seen outside Downing Street on Wednesday. “I hope they burn it down,” one person said. Another called for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be hung, saying, “Starmer needs a Musalini.” [sic] therapy.

Among those found at the scene of the Southport riots were activists from Patriotic Alternative, one of the fastest-growing far-right groups in recent years. Other groups, including those divided over their stances on conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and Israel, have also sought to get involved.

Dr Tim Squirrel, communications director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a counter-extremism think tank, said the far right had attempted to use events like Armistice Day and screenings of Robinson's films to rally protesters in the streets last year.

He said the current situation is unstable and will only get worse due to the worst online information environment in recent years.

Robinson remains one of the most effective organizers on the British far right. But we have also seen the rise of accounts, large and small, that curate news stories that appeal to anti-immigrant and anti-Islam sentiments and have no interest in spreading unverified information.

There is a danger that this moment will be exploited to create street protests more akin to those of the 2010s.

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