When news broke that a 17-year-old male had stabbed a number of young girls in Southport, misinformation swiftly followed. First, that the perpetrator was an asylum seeker or refugee who had come to the UK on a boat. This was discredited and information emerged that the individual was British-born. But the circulation of disinformation, including a fake, Arab-sounding name, led many to argue it must have been a Muslim male.
Though the perpetrator has no known links to Islam, violent, far-right rioters still mobilised to attack mosques. Islamophobic violence spilled onto the streets in the worst race riots Britain has seen in years.
The fact that this misinformation was so readily believed can be partly explained by psychology, and how we think about people who look like us, and about others who don’t.
