UK riots, American big tech, and international politics

By Prof. Ecaterina MATOIAugust 11, 2024

Photo’s source: https://www.lbc.co.uk

“It’s 2030 in the UK & you’re being executed for posting a meme …”[1]

On July 29^th, 2024, a stabbing attack that killed three little girls, wounded more children and adults took place in Southport, UK. The combination of speculation, speed and reach of social media led to a new wave of anti-immigration and Islamophobic protests/riots in the UK, that are likely to further spread in the UK and Europe, at least.

This article will briefly assess instances of disinformation and misinformation related to the stabbing and identity of the suspect, but also background developments like relatively recent changes in big tech business and the evolving international confrontational scene.

UK protests, the unprecedented misinformation scale, and politics

From a societal and state perspective, the UK is generally a stable environment that survived historical challenges relatively successful. This factor is relatively important, in order to correctly identify the recent protests and their destabilization potential in general. Immediately after the Southport stabbing attack, there was no official information related to the suspect, as the British law prohibits releasing such data before charges are being brought. The speculations related to his identity and background is well reflected by Professor Marc Owen Jones’s post explaining that there were 27 million impressions “for posts stating or speculating that the attacker was Muslim, a migrant, refugee or foreigner” in one day after the attack[2]. In the UK, supporters of the two main populist ideas, anti-immigration, and anti-Islam, did not give the authorities any chance to do their job first and inflamed spirits with speculative opinions expressed online. Nigel Farage, a central Brexit figure, recognized spreading misinformation soon after contributing online to what can be considered a crisis[3]. The far-right politician Tommy Robinson, co-founder of the English Defense League, reportedly stated that the attack would represent “more evidence to suggest Islam is a mental health issue than a religion of peace,” encouraging his almost 900’000 followers on X/Twitter platform to join the protests[4]. The events prompted Prime-Minister Keir Starmer to reiterate that laws related to prohibition of incitement to violence must be upheld online as well, including by social media platforms[5].

The background of these protests is relatively complex within the UK society. The state of UK economy has been relatively fragile in recent years. The Brexit proponents were successful in 2016, but since then, the British Pound (GBP) began to lose ground against the USD as well, and no signs of a real economic recovery are on the radar. It must be mentioned that there were earlier protests in the UK before Southport as well. However, the anti-immigration stance and anti-Muslim one continue to resonate with a part of the electorate, especially the one affected by economic uncertainty. It must be emphasized in this context that, apart from the political populism that points the finger at immigration, this phenomenon will probably transform in the future, as the global economic landscape also does.

According to reports[6], the opposition party started an internal discussion on the “divisive language” contribution of some of its members to the protests. Given this internal division issue that UK faces, it must be considered that the UK strongly supported the war from Ukraine, hence potential reports that the assets connected to Russia may have poured gasoline on fire are relatively logical.

However, the most surprising reactions to the UK protests may not come from the Russian Federation. As if the challenge for UK authorities was not significant enough, the language that American news outlets utilize to describe potential evolutions is relatively harsh. The CNN report from August 10^th, utilizes the term “trouble” in its headline[7] when referring to riot potential, and Bloomberg’s 10^th of August report[8] takes the narrative to a new level: it associates the riots with a “threat to Keir Starmer”, while bluntly suggesting that the Prime Minister has on the list “tackling migration”. While defining task lists for politicians and governments was historically specific to think-tanks, irrespective of requests’ legitimacy, Bloomberg’s tone and terms from cited article stand out. Furthermore, seeding the idea that PM Starmer’s government would be at risk immediately after being elected, cannot prevent an observer from recalling potential coup attempts, like the most recent one from Venezuela.

The American pressure on British politics is not limited to newspapers. In the same day, 10^th of August, the relatively known commentator Joe Rogan, reportedly claimed that the UK became more authoritarian than Russia, the article mentioning 400 yearly arrests for “hateful” posts and 3300 in the UK[9]. Without disputing the facts and the relatively liberal view to the problem raised, one has to acknowledge that the definition of authoritarianism has to be considered in connection with the hate speech and a state’s laws, especially on violence. Furthermore, modern warfare tools like online propaganda and division seeding, that result in deaths or a weaker community in many cases, cannot be assessed only in conjunction with archaic terms like authoritarianism: there is more to the story.

Entrepreneur and potentially soon full-fledged politician Elon Musk went even further and claimed that “civil war is inevitable” (in the UK)[10]. As his popularity is very high across the globe, this view will likely determine certain passive observers change decisions. Musk’s pursuit for freedom of speech is relatively clear and reflected in the administration of America’s most popular news source via social media[11]. But at the time, it must be acknowledged that such a popular peer tweeting on the potential of civil war in the UK is not necessarily helpful in tackling the crisis. On one hand, the US, its government, and top business representatives may need to hint at challenges others face in order to distract attention or de-emphasize crises and a potential “civil war” in the US itself, but on the other hand, UK’s new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) may have sparked discontent among American big tech representatives.

UK DMCC: a significant spat with US business interests?

Prior to approving this legislation, lobby attempts had been reported as unsuccessful. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act[12] is often presented as an equivalent of European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), although there are differences between the two. Essentially, the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been augmented with a Digital Markets Unit (DMU), that, based on precise criteria, will designate big technology companies with the Strategic Market Status (SMS). The SMS companies will have to apply very specific rules and subject mergers to approvals, among other attributions. Companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft[13] are likely to get SMS status at least initially.

In conjunction with the 2023 Online Safety Act[14], the UK appears to introduce long-awaited regulations in the highly profitable online tech sector. Assuming that the messages coming from the US related to most recent riots entail also a discontent, this may well be related to the introduction of regulations in the online business sector. However, while this reveals a potential row, it also underlines how unregulated the big tech sectors was until UK’s DMCC and EU’s DMA. Combined with the still workable tax “optimization” in arbitrary tax jurisdictions, the potentially significant discontent of American big tech companies with regulation reveals the scale and importance of corporate interests, along with political conditions.

While the UK appears to have made a significant move towards market regulation, it must be emphasized that even in the US, big tech corporations are being scrutinized. The recent ruling in an American court, according to which Google was an illegal monopoly in search engine market, along with relatively significant layoffs in the big tech sector, signal a broader will to either regulate or restructure corporate giants that interact with the market and smaller competition. Hence while there is a potential alignment between the British and American policy on regulating big tech, the scope and reach might remain different.

The question whether there is a connection between the UK riots and big tech regulation discontent is difficult to answer. In all cases, representatives like Elon Musk did not appear to contribute actively to conflict resolution through the message mentioned above, and the powerful American media that supports global interests also warned the UK of potential further risks instead of providing typical friendly support as expected among allies.

Assessment and conclusion

After a series of previous violent protests and a relatively long economic stagnation, the UK was recently confronted with a significant wave of anti-immigration and Islamophobic riots based on false allegations related to the origin and orientation of the Southport assailant. This reveals the existence of a machinery ready to amplify and instrumentalize populist, far-right ideology, irrespective of facts on the ground regarding immigration: it requires just a spark in order to mobilize significant resources for violent actions whose purpose is, at best, an increase in electoral chances for certain groups rather than orienting the country towards a sustainable future. From this perspective, the UK faces two challenges that other countries also began to experience: a potential increase in foreign activity meant to divide its society despite democratic, fair elections, and emerging threats due to the unclear path towards future prosperity. Assuming that the Russian interference also existed, given the confrontation in Ukraine from which the UK cannot be separated, certain American contributions to the situation must be mentioned as well. Assuming that messages like the ones presented above, or Andrew Tate’s false claims on the Southport tragedy, are in line with freedom of speech and are theoretically apolitical, it cannot be directly concluded that they do not have any potential to influence the lives of Britons, peaceful coexistence in communities or Kingdom’s political landscape.

[1] Elon Musk on his X account; https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1822254173359890461, 11.08.2024.

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/far-right-taylor-swift-stabbings-misinformation-protests-rcna164551 11.08.2024.

[3] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/nigel-farage-admits-to-spreading-misinformation-after-southport-knife-attack/3297939 11.8.2024

[4] https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/en/article/anti-immigration-riots-are-escalating-in-the-uk-heres-how-misinformation-spurred-violence/klg25tml4 11.08.2024.

[5] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/pm-starmer-warns-social-media-firms-after-southport-misinformation-fuels-uk-2024-08-01/ 11.08.2024.

[6] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/10/top-tories-fuelled-riots-divisive-language-immigration 11.08.2024.

[7] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/10/uk/uk-far-right-riots-tension-intl-gbr/index.html 11.08.2024.

[8] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-10/threat-to-keir-starmer-persists-as-riots-expose-uk-social-divisions?srnd=homepage-europe 11.08.2024.

[9] https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/joe-rogan-uk-now-more-totalitarian-than-russia/

[10] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/06/tech/elon-musk-civil-war-uk-riots/index.html 11.08.2024.

[11] https://www.statista.com/statistics/330638/politics-governement-news-social-media-news-usa/ 11.08.2024.

[12] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13 11.08.2024.