Within hours of the fatal stabbing of three young people in Southport on 29 July, rumours were swirling around social media that the assailant was an undocumented Muslim immigrant. By 3pm the next day, his alleged name, ‘al-Shakati’, had been mentioned on the platform X (formerly Twitter) more than 30,000 times.
Over the following days, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant violence spread across multiple British cities, with far-right mobs launching attacks on mosques and hostels housing asylum seekers.
The turmoil continued even after the claims were unveiled as fake news and the identity of the attacker was revealed to be a 17-year-old born in Cardiff to non-Muslim Rwandan parents.
