REVEALED: Russian-linked website which fuelled lies about Southport

A Russian-linked fake news website fuelled lies that sparked violent protests over the Southport stabbings.

A Mail investigation traced the misinformation that spread like wildfire online, leading – 27 hours later – to an attack on a mosque and 53 police officers being injured as they tried to protect it.

There were further ugly scenes last night as flares and glass bottles were thrown near Downing Street when protesters clashed with officers.

The violence has been stirred up by false claims the triple murder suspect was an asylum seeker called Ali Al-Shakati who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was ‘on the MI6 watchlist’.

The claims were amplified by social media account Channel3 Now, which masquerades as an American news website and whose inflammatory post was viewed by nearly two million people before being deleted.

The allegations were leapt on by Russian state media, hard-Right activist Tommy Robinson, and misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate, who added fuel to the fire by telling his 10 million followers that an ‘illegal migrant’ has stabbed ‘6 little girls’, adding: ‘Wake up.’

The online lies spread so far and so quickly that Merseyside Police was forced to take the unusual step of releasing a statement saying the name circulating on the internet was ‘incorrect’ and that the suspect was in fact born in Cardiff.

But that did not stop hundreds gathering outside a mosque in Southport, throwing missiles and shouting slogans such as ‘No surrender’ and ‘English till I die’, before setting a police van on fire.

Southport MP Patrick Hurley blamed Tuesday’s clashes on ‘a swirling morass on social media of lies and propaganda’, and last night riot police were tackling unruly crowds outside Downing Street.

Around 1,000 protesters descended on Westminster with chants of ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘save our kids’, ‘Oh Tommy Robinson’ and ‘stop the boats’. They attempted to leave the pavement opposite Downing Street in defiance of strict police conditions on the protest.

Shortly after 7pm, the crowd – many of whom were drinking alcohol – began marching towards Parliament Square. The protesters threw flares at a statue of Winston Churchill and shouted abuse at nearby pro-Ukrainian demonstrators and police.

Police detained more than a dozen men. Beer cans and glass bottles were thrown at a line of officers in riot gear who assembled to block Whitehall in front of Downing Street.

The Mail can reveal that Channel3 Now, which claims to be based in the US but has paid for high-end privacy protections, started life 11 years ago as a Russian YouTube channel that posted videos of rally-driving in the snow in Izhevsk, a Russian city about 750 miles east of Moscow. 

The drivers named in the videos have connections to the country’s defence and IT industries, including a man who appears to be a former KGB operative who has since served in Russia’s parliament.

Channel3 Now was inactive for six years before it suddenly began posting bizarre videos in English in 2019, including one about a tiger being beaten to death and a match report on the Manchester City women’s football team.

Two years ago, the videos began to look like the output of a professional news channel and, in June last year, Channel3 Now set up its website, which has been accused of sharing ‘racially motivated click-bait’.

The website has routinely changed its name and has gone by ‘Fox3 Now’ and ‘Fox3 News’ in an apparent attempt to copy the names of legitimate news organisations. It appears to be using internet servers in the US and is registered with an online hosting company in Lithuania, but has privacy features that hide its owner’s identity.

Last night, Channel3 Now posted an apology on its website for spreading incorrect details about the attack, in which the fake news organisation said it had ‘made sure that the team responsible for publishing this news is fired’.

The apology contained several errors, and when the Mail ran the wording through five separate AI language checkers, four said that 100 per cent of it had been written by an AI programme such as ChatGPT.

In its online report of the Southport stabbings, Russia Today – Vladimir Putin’s state broadcaster – repeated Channel3 Now’s lies. It has since put an ‘editor’s note’ on the article saying ‘the outlet later retracted the claim’.

The first mention of the suspect’s false name appears to have been shared to the near 50,000 followers of a well-known UK anti-lockdown activist.

It came at 4.49pm on Monday, around five hours after the attack that left three primary school girls who were attending a Taylor Swift-themed dance event dead.

Two minutes later, the details appeared on Channel3 Now, where they were amplified to millions of people across the internet.

The tweet was later deleted, with the activist saying: ‘It was irresponsible to have posted it in the first place. I shouldn’t have.’

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner hit out at the ‘disgraceful’ violence in Southport.

‘Speculation and some of the untruths that have been put around social media, not only is that creating tensions and fear in the community, but it’s disrespectful to a family who maybe wants those answers that haven’t got those answers,’ she said.

Tory MP James Cleverly said the Government must come down ‘hard and fast’ on those spreading misleading information in the wake of the killings.

‘The violence we have seen in Southport is an insult to the memory of the victims of this heinous attack,’ he said.

‘These are not protesters fighting injustice, they are thugs fighting the police, tearing up a community that is already trying to process an unimaginable horror.’

Local MP Mr Hurley said the violence by ‘beered-up thugs’ was the result of ‘propaganda and lies’ spread on social media.

The Mail approached Channel3 Now for comment. Soon afterwards, its YouTube page was taken down from the internet.