Laura Newell: British violence shows the danger of online misinformation

“You English? Are you white?” comes the call from a bloke standing in the middle of a junction in Britain’s Middlesbrough, if the video caption is to be believed.

The poster of the video on X writes: “#Middlesbrough asking if the drivers are white to let them through … if not they’re not going nowhere. Genuinely scared for my town”.

Jeers can be heard as the video pans around to see a mob hanging out around the junction with police forming a line of defence along the end of the street. “You can’t do s..t” comes next, aimed at the cops.

It’s just one of a series of incidents of racism and thuggery on British streets over the past week, sparked in the wake of the tragic stabbing to death of three little girls attending a Taylor Swift-inspired dance class at a holiday club in Southport.

We don’t yet know the full details of why Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7 and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, were allegedly killed by a 17-year-old Welsh-born boy of Christian parents.

But sections of the internet would have you believe that the alleged killer — who is black — was a recent illegal immigrant (many posts tout him as a Muslim), who was out for “British” blood. Cue protests and counter-protests.

The court even allowed the youth to be named in order to prevent misinformation being spread.

But despite authorities attempting to correct the false information at every opportunity, it continues to be spread online at almost every turn — whether by Russian baked fake-news sites or by members of Britain’s toxic far-right hitting social media — whipping up with it anti-migrant anger and stoking, in particular, Islamophobia.

That, in turn, further adds to the literal fires then set by the misguided souls turning out onto the streets, apparently persuaded by the vile claptrap social media giants allow to be peddled amid the changeover to a new government and serious, and legitimate, questions over migration.

Since leaving Britain more than a decade ago, I have at several points felt ashamed of my birth country when watching on from afar.

But never more so than this weekend as I read of people huddled in their rooms at a hotel in Rotherham while a fire raged beneath them and cops struggled to clear a mob — that believed asylum seekers were housed there — so firefighters could put out the flames.

A truly shameful week for Britain. But also a warning to us all; social media misinformation and disinformation isn’t harmless.

On announcing Australia’s terror threat had risen from “possible” to “probable” on Monday morning, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pointed the finger at “more Australians . . . embracing a more diverse range of extreme ideologies”, with special mention of young people being radicalised online, for much of the increased threat.

“Governments around the world are concerned about youth radicalisation, online radicalisation and the rise of new mixed ideologies,” he said.

And he was joined by ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess who said there was a greater than 50 per cent chance of an onshore terrorist attack this year.

“Politically motivated violence now joins espionage and foreign interference as our principal security concerns,” he said.

“Unfortunately, here and overseas, we are seeing spikes in political polarisation and intolerance and civil debate and un-peaceful protests.

“Extremist ideologies, conspiracies and misinformation are flourishing in the online ecosystem and young Australians are particularly vulnerable.”

The news out of Britain this week would, terrifyingly, seem to illustrate their point perfectly.