Government Takes Social Media To Task Over Violence

Home secretary Yvette Cooper has said the government will be approaching social media companies this week over their role in stemming further violence following days of protests and riots.

She told the Today programme on Monday that social media firms needed to take action over “shocking misinformation“, online agitators and the “organisation of violence”.

The government on Monday held an emergency Cobra meeting at which prime minister Kier Starmer said the group agreed to create a “standing army” of specialist officers to intervene where necessary.

Starmer said criminal law should apply to those agitating online as well as offline.

‘Law applies online’

The riots follow a stabbing rampage in Southport that left three girls dead and many more wounded.

False rumours spread online said the suspect was a Muslim immigrant, while the actual suspect was a 17-year-old born in the UK.

On Sunday mobs attacked two hotels used to house asylum seekers, breaking windows and lighting fires before police dispersed the crowds and residents were evacuated.

Speaking on Sunday, Starmer said the authorities would “do whatever it takes to bring these thugs to justice”, including those “whipping up this action online”.

“I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder, whether directly or those whipping up this action online and then running away themselves,” he said.

“This is not a protest. It is organised, violent thuggery and it has no place on our streets or online.

“The law applies online, so if you’re inciting violence, it doesn’t matter whether it’s online or offline,” he said.

Cooper said social media had put “rocket boosters” under agitating groups supercharging their “organisation, the attention and the misinformation”.

‘Hostile states’

The government’s adviser on political violence and disruption, Lord Walney, said agitators were “almost certainly” being “aided and abetted by hostile states in creating and fanning disinformation”.

He said: “You’ll have troll factories in places like Russia and Iran full of Russian or Iranian nationals pretending to be Brits with extreme views on the far right or the far left, whose sole purpose is to create disinformation and fan it.

“That can have a very significant effect in this environment.”

Speaking to Sky News, Cooper said the government knows that “there can be amplification of social media activity online” but said the government’s focus was on “local groups and organisations”.

Speaking to the BBC, the prime minister’s spokesperson criticised a post on X by platform owner Elon Musk that said “civil war is inevitable”, in response to a video showing people aiming fireworks at police.

There is “no justification” for such remarks, the spokesperson said, adding that there was more social media firms “can and should be doing”.