AS police south of the Border steel their ranks ahead of expected further unrest, fears are escalating that far-right violence and chaos could come to Scotland.
Much of this fear was encapsulated by posts which were doing the rounds on social media on Wednesday morning about a far-right rally which was apparently to take place that afternoon in George Square, Glasgow.
Posts were shared widely by dubious accounts warning people to avoid areas such as the city centre – and neighbourhoods with large Muslim or ethnic minority populations such as Pollokshields and Ibrox.
One post, complete with eye-catching graphic design, issued a warning of a “far-right hate protest” which it said was taking place “possibly in George Square”.
At the time it was published, it was the account’s only post on Instagram. There were just 200 people following the profile.
Police Scotland that morning said it had no intelligence any protests were planned for George Square and none came to pass in the afternoon.
But while demonstrations or riots were avoided, the mere threat that violence could spread to Scotland sent fear and anxiety into the hearts of many Scots, who shared the warnings on their social media accounts.
Some charity bosses in the city centre also felt moved to close their offices ahead of expected unrest out of fears for the safety of their staff.
Scares like this have become commonplace throughout the UK in recent days, after riots erupted across England, Wales and Northern Ireland last week.
In one instance, BBC Verify confirmed that footage of a motorcyclist’s funeral in Walthamstow, London last year was presented as evidence that Muslim men were preparing to confront the far-right on Wednesday.
This video is currently being shared with false claims that it shows a group of Muslim men on motorbikes blocking a road in Walthamstow to confront far-right protesters. The video is from last year, when a group of bikers blocked a road in London to mark the death of a friend. pic.twitter.com/F8mG5QcX9U
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) August 7, 2024
Disorder has continued but police and prosecutors hope to diminish unrest through a ferocious crackdown on offenders.
Courts in England and Wales could sit overnight to plough through a mounting caseload and more than 140 people have been charged in connection with riots so far, with the number of arrests topping 400 by Wednesday.
Despite this, rumours remain rife that far-right agitators are planning more demonstrations, sparking fears of further riots.
Is it a tactic?
But one Glasgow University social media expert has warned these rumours may be a sophisticated technique in order to lure counter-protesters out into the streets for events which were never really planned to take place.
Dr Paul Reilly, a senior lecturer in communications, media and democracy, told The National that bad actors could be behind rumours – presented as being well-intentioned – that the far-right are mobilising in areas to “bring people out when they don’t need to be out to counter-protest, where that might cause other issues”.
He said: “What we know so far, eight, nine days after what happened in Southport is that a lot of the far-right groups seem to use sites like Telegram and obviously have been active for a couple of years.
“But there’s no central organisation as such and I think that’s where it can be hard to pin-point where some things emerged from and whether some groups have responsibility.
“There’s not an organisational structure which is particularly sophisticated or centralised but that doesn’t mean to say that great harm can’t be caused by people spreading misinformation as we’ve seen with lists of protests and those posts that are circulating particularly in the last 48 hours I would say.”
Dr Reilly said it “can’t be ruled out” that malign influence from things like Russian bot farms, which churn out destabilising disinformation on an industrial scale as seen during the Brexit referendum and the Black Lives Matter protests, could be behind scare stories on social media.
He said: “I think the confusion is to be expected because we have had some forensic analysis of tweets and those things but we haven’t done an awful lot of that so far because it’s quite recent.”
Dr Reilly said that violence became more likely because of fake news being spread online, designed to bring more people into the streets and exacerbating an already “febrile” atmosphere.
“You have people who want to counter-demonstrate, looking at the same information online which is that this public area is going to be occupied, you’ve the police who are there in large numbers and the media so it becomes something where almost that perhaps makes violence more likely because there are people who are documenting it,” he said.
Dr Reilly added: “Social media reinforces that cycle, I think, where this is not dissipating perhaps the way civil unrest would have dissipated before, I think social media is giving it more airtime, it is almost reinforcing what people think about these issues in a very toxic environment.”
Urging people to be careful about the information they are sharing online, the Glasgow University academic said: “I think looking for things that are odd, which feel wrong is probably a good start and looking at sources and whether it’s coming from more than one source.”
And he raised concerns a similar tactic was being used by far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson ahead of a demonstration which is apparently set to take place in George Square next month.
Dr Reilly said that by announcing plans for the protest “far in advance”, far-right agitators were able to provoke “several weeks of tension” ahead of the event – regardless of whether it goes ahead or not.
He added: “It comes back to that issue where you’ve people who we do not know behind many of these social media posts can cause an awful lot of fear, anxiety and harm to communities through very little effort, through what they put out.”
