— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) September 18, 2022 It was a social media tempest, primarily created on another continent, that erupted in real life in Leicester, where police made over 50 arrests and a community was shattered. “It is a strong instance of how hashtag dynamics on Twitter may exploit questionable inflammatory claims to… increase tensions on the ground,” said a representative for the fact-checking site Logically, which examined the reliability of the messages. “I’ve seen quite a bit of social media material that is very, very misleading today, and some of it just absolutely dishonest about what had been happening amongst various groups,” Leicester Mayor Peter Soulsby told BBC radio.
— Aina J. Khan (@ainajkhan) September 18, 2022 Leicestershire Police Commissioner Rob Nixon agreed, telling the BBC that disinformation on social media played a “major role” in last month’s upheaval. To refute some of these allegations, authorities resorted to social media, claiming that they had thoroughly examined reports of three guys approaching a teenage girl in an attempted kidnapping and discovered no reality to the internet account. “We strongly advise you to only publish material on social media that you know is accurate,” they stated. Fact-checkers discovered no validity in accusations that masked thugs were bused into Leicester. “The events in Leicester did not arise out of nowhere,” said Keval Bharadia of the South Asia Solidarity Group, a community non-profit in the United Kingdom. “For years, friends and relatives have been distributing phoney news and disinformation. It’s an endless flood of misinformation from troll armies.
