‘X acted like petrol on the fire of racist violence in the aftermath of the Southport tragedy’
Elon Musk’s X played a key role in spreading harmful content that fuelled last summer’s far-right riots, a new report has found.
The riots started in Southport, after three young girls were tragically killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, and misinformation spread on social media. Riots subsequently took place in other cities across the UK including London, Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool.
A damning analysis by Amnesty International found that X’s algorithm boosts hateful and harmful content, allowing it to spread at speed.
It found that X’s content-ranking algorithms, which drives the “For You” page prioritises content that sparks outrage and contentious engagement, “without adequate safeguards to prevent or mitigate harm”.
In the aftermath of the Southport stabbings on 29 July 2024, an account on X called “Europe Invasion”, known to publish anti-immigrant and Islamophobic content, posted that the suspect was “alleged to be a Muslim immigrant”.
That post garnered over four million views.
Within 24 hours, all X posts speculating that the perpetrator was Muslim, a refugee, a foreign national, or arrived by boat, had an estimated 27 million impressions.
In addition, in the two weeks following the Southport attack, Tommy Robinson’s posts on X received over 580 million views – an unprecedented reach for a figure who has been banned from multiple social media platforms for breaching hate speech rules.
The report points out that since Elon Musk’s takeover in late 2022, X has weakened many of its safety guardrails aimed at curbing harmful content and disinformation.
These include mass layoffs of content moderation staff and the reinstatement of banned accounts.
Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive of Amnesty International, said: “By amplifying hate and misinformation on such a massive scale, X acted like petrol on the fire of racist violence in the aftermath of the Southport tragedy.
“The platform’s algorithm not only failed to ‘break the circuit’ and stop the spread of dangerous falsehoods; they are highly likely to have amplified them.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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