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The real story of the news website accused of fuelling riots


The BBC tracks down a Canadian hockey player, a dad in Pakistan and a Texan named Kevin linked to Channel3Now.

Kevin says that the blame for social media storm relating to the Southport suspect and the subsequent riots cannot be laid squarely on a “small Twitter account” making “a mistake”. The false claim that Ms Spofforth posted about the Southport attacker was quickly re-shared and picked up by a loose group of conspiracy theory influencers and profiles with a history of sharing anti-immigration and far-right ideas. While there have been calls from politicians for social media companies to do more in the wake of the riots, the UK's recently enacted Online Safety Bill does not currently legislate against disinformation, after concerns that that could limit freedom of expression.

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