Rioting has taken place in cities and towns across the UK.
A fake news website is accused of fuelling the UK riots by posting lies about the Southport stabbings.
Bebe King, Alice Dasilva Aguiar and Elsie Dot Stancombe died after being stabbed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Channel3Now, which poses as an American news website, published a false story claiming the suspect was an asylum seeker named Ali Al-Shakati who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was “on the MI6 watchlist”.
In actual fact, the suspect was Axel Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff.
A social media post about the story received millions of views and was widely shared on X by far-right influencers.
The misinformation spread so far that Merseyside Police was forced to release a statement, saying the name circulating online was “incorrect”.
But that did not stop hundreds from gathering outside a mosque in Southport, throwing missiles and shouting slogans before setting a police van on fire.
Rioting has taken place in cities and towns across the UK.
A BBC investigation looking into the origins of Channel3Now identified two of its contributors as an amateur hockey player called James, who lives in Canada, and Farhan, a man from Pakistan.
Both men, neither of whom were named as authors of the Southport story, were verified as real people.
A man named Kevin, from Texas, claimed the site’s “main office” is in the US and said there are “more than 30” people in America, the UK, Pakistan and India who work for the site and said these were usually freelancers, including Farhan and James.
According to Kevin, Channel3Now was a business and “covering as many stories as possible” helped to make money. Many of its stories are accurate and copy crime reports in the US media.
Kevin did not reveal the owner, saying he was worried “not only about himself but also about everyone working for him”.
He said Farhan in particular had nothing to do with the Southport story.
Channel3Now has since issued a “sincere apology” and blamed its “UK-based team”. It added that it had “fired” those responsible.
However, the apology was filled with errors and four out of five AI language checkers said 100% of it had been AI-generated.
In 2013, Channel3Now began as a Russian YouTube channel that posted videos of rally-driving.
It became inactive and remained so for six years before it suddenly began posting bizarre videos in English in 2019, including one about a tiger being beaten to death and a match report on the Manchester City women’s football team.
In 2022, the videos began to look like the output of a professional news channel and, in June 2023, Channel3Now set up its website, which has been accused of sharing “racially motivated click-bait”.
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