Thread: Lots of Paragraphs

The obscure Russian-linked ‘news’ outlet fuelling violence on Britain’s streets

Before the fire and fury in Southport, there was a name – Ali Al-Shakati.


Al-Shakati has never existed, we now know, but that didn’t stop an obscure, Russian-linked fake news outlet from naming him as a 17-year-old supposedly Muslim asylum seeker responsible for the murder of three schoolgirls in the town on Monday.


Channel3 Now, a website that masquerades as a legitimate American news outlet but acts as an “aggregator” for real news stories as well as fake viral claims, published the claim on the back of speculation which appeared to have started on X, formerly known as Twitter.


What had begun as a trickle then became a flood, sending the conspiracy theory pouring out through social media anew, where the name was boosted by thousands of other Russia-linked accounts before being repeated by authentic Russian state media, which cited Channel3 Now in its reporting.


The claim was meanwhile picked up by far-Right figures such as Tommy Robinson – founder of the anti-immigrant English Defence League, which played a major role in instigating the riots in Southport and elsewhere this week – and notorious influencer Andrew Tate, whose posts about Al-Shakati garnered millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes.

By Tuesday, the conspiracy had gone mainstream, propelled by the likes of entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne who claimed in a post online that “maybe [Tommy Robinson] was right all along” about the risks posed by Muslim immigrants, before later deleting the remarks. And as news of the attacker’s supposed identity spread, anger grew, sparking the riots that rocked the Merseyside town that evening before spreading out across the country.


Police were later forced to confirm that the suspect’s supposed name was false. On Thursday, the real suspect was named in court as Axel Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents in 2006.

Exactly how this little known website found itself at the centre of the chain of events is “very, very messy and uncertain”, says Stephen Hutchings, a Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Manchester and the principle investigator at (Mis)Translating Deceit, an anti-disinformation project.


There are many like it, who post hundreds of stories a day with a pro-Russian or anti-western slant intended to sow confusion and destabilise society in Britain and elsewhere, Hutchings explains, and why this one in particular gained such traction following Monday’s attack in Merseyside may never be fully understood.


But what is known, he says, is that Channel3 Now belongs to a complex web of modern day information warfare that stretches from the grief-stricken streets of Southport all the way back to the Russian city of Izhevsk, some 800 miles east of Moscow – and an obscure YouTube channel seemingly set up by amateur car rally enthusiasts more than a decade ago.


The channel’s first videos, aired in 2012, were posted with Russian titles and generic thumbnails, and showed drag racers gleefully thrashing their cars about in a snowy Izhevsk.


Like so many accounts set up in the early 2010s, when YouTube took off as a major online streaming platform, the channel went dead for several years after its owners presumably grew bored with it. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, it became active again and was renamed Funny Hours, Hutchings says. Rather than its original car-fan content, however, it was posting English-language videos about Pakistan upon its reboot.


Disinformation expert Dr Marc Owen Jones, a professor at Northwestern University’s campus in Doha, said this week that the sudden change in content published by the account suggested it had been “hijacked and repurposed” – as opposed to it being formally part of a Russian disinformation operation from the off.


Hutchings agrees, and believes that the takeover was carried out by Russian-linked actors suspected of being behind Channel3 Now as a way to shield their identities. In 2016, three years before the YouTube account’s possible “hijacking” appeared to take place, a Facebook page used to share its content was set up with the same name: Funny Hours.


The videos uploaded were bizarre. They included one focused on a tiger being beaten to death, and a match report on Manchester City’s women’s team, according to a report by MailOnline.


But a couple of years ago, things shifted. The organisation appeared to have been rebranded as Channel3 Now and the videos it shared began to resemble those of a professional news channel. Last year, channel3now.com was registered as a web domain.


Content shared on the site in the run-up to the stabbings in Southport included news pieces that appeared to have been ripped straight from British and American newswires, but also stranger stories too: a very brief obituary for American singer Shifty Shellshock, who died last month, and a piece accusing NFL player Xavien Howard of “having four women pregnant at the same time”.

The obscure Russian-linked ‘news’ outlet fuelling violence on Britain’s streets

Russian scum.

Originally Posted by Backspin

Belfast

Irish and British nationalists are standing side by side protesting against mass immigration while the left tries to shout them down.

Tricolour and Union Jack on one side, rainbow flags and Antifa flags on the other.

https://x.com/Mick_O_Keeffe/status/1...WLKmhq0CQ&s=19

The irony of Brit immigrants protesting against immigrants.

Far right rioters assaulting a lone black man in Manchester:

https://x.com/bmay/status/1819765667073056893

Links below in the thread to more violence in other cities and people openly giving the nazi salute.

Years of incitement by the likes of Braverman, Tice, Farage, Anderson etc and the far right in this country are out of control.

It's a disgrace.

Originally Posted by Backspin

Tricolour and Union Jack on one side, rainbow flags and Antifa flags on the other.

Irish tricolour vs Palestine flag in that footage...

Which side will Snakey be on...

Originally Posted by hallelujah

It's a disgrace.

Of course, you would never miss the shit that the muzzies have done? It is far, far worse...

Knife and axe attack in Stoke...

https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1819758480070201544

https://x.com/Khaledhzakariah/status...29012401438884

Originally Posted by bsnub

Of course, you would never miss the shit that the muzzies have done? It is far, far worse...

Knife and axe attack in Stoke...

https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1819758480070201544

https://x.com/Khaledhzakariah/status...29012401438884

You never fail to disappoint, do you snubby?

All week we've seen looting, assaults, attacks on mosques etc, but you choose to highlight a response to all this.

Pretty much like you're hopelessly out of touch views on Israel/Palestine really.

And what, exactly, is wrong with this where he urges the others to stay peaceful and not react to the provocation from the far right?

https://x.com/Khaledhzakariah/status...29012401438884

^ First time in my life I've ever got the your/you're wrong that is.

In my defence, I did rewrite the sentence and simply forgot to change it.

Will leave it there for posterity though instead of going in and editing it.

Expect Sheriff Cy to explode!

Originally Posted by hallelujah

shaven-headed feral scum

Those mobsters are always drawn to .."the action".

Same everywhere

Might calm down when the football starts.

Originally Posted by helge

Might calm down when the football starts.

Depends how many injuries they get.

.....

Mostly northern twats.

As I said before, when it starts raining again, when the holidays are over, when they need to work overtime to pay for the cocaine etc, and the football season begins it’ll peter out.

The white English moron has no stamina and as much political conviction as a traffic bollard. They really are quite stupid but in the end they prefer to get drunk, eat a curry, snort some cocaine and to fuck a bag of cellulite. Getting nicked, fined and being potted for 18 months soon loses its attraction.

Guys let's not lump all shaven headed-football loving-feral scum into one.

Some of us moved to Thailand.

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

The white English moron has no stamina and as much political conviction as a traffic bollard. They really are quite stupid but in the end they prefer to get drunk, eat a curry, snort some cocaine and to fuck a bag of cellulite. Getting nicked, fined and being potted for 18 months soon loses its attraction.

Fair call. You might even call them… Brits Behaving Badly

Originally Posted by helge

Donna Jones is a politician, a Conservative politician.

That said, her current role is as a Police and Crime Commissioner, responsible for policing.

PCCs aim to cut crime and deliver an effective and efficient police service within their police force area. They are elected by the public to hold Chief Constables and the force to account, making the police answerable to the communities they serve.

She may have let her political bias show with her now-deleted statement.

Thanks

I always find deletions interesting.

(not my own though)

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Jesus Christ.

I'm not on a laptop, so I can't post photos now, but these are young, shaven-headed feral scum responding to Farage and co's dog whistling.

https://x.com/TomLatchem/status/1818...ser=TomLatchem

https://x.com/bmay/status/1819765667073056893

https://x.com/Webbo03/status/1820118217395974277


There are no Timberland dockers, Ralph Lauren shirts and Lacoste jumpers casually thrown across the shoulders of these little rats playing joyfully in the sun with their little kids, you utter fuckkng retard.

Was it just last week when one of Harry or Cy asked why you continuously pollute threads with your shite?

The legit protest a few days ago was lower middle class suburban dads. They aren't the tip of the spear of the current violence. Which is what i was fucking saying.

I didn't know differing opinions were out of bounds on a discussion forum

Originally Posted by Backspin

The legit protest a few days ago was lower middle class suburban dads. They aren't the tip of the spear of the current violence. Which is what i was fucking saying.

Yes you did

Originally Posted by Backspin

Pissed off suburban dad's don't light hotels on fire.

Originally Posted by Backspin

I didn't know differing opinions were out of bounds on a discussion forum

They aren't

Edit, nevermind

Starmer: ‘We will bring this mob to justice