Free Speech Union (FSU) General Secretary joined Patrick Christys on GB News to discuss the breaking story that a Pakistani web developer has been accused of being the first person to spread disinformation about the Southport knifeman which triggered the UK riots has been charged with cyber terrorism.
Farhan Asif reportedly worked for news aggregation website Channel3Now, and has now been charged with cyber terrorism after the site falsely claimed that the knifeman was a Muslim asylum seeker who arrived in the UK via boat and was on an MI6 watchlist.
As Toby says, this development suggests Sir Kier Starmer’s initial claim that the riots were organised by far-right agitators in the UK, many of them from outside the local areas from where the disorder took place, was itself ‘fake news’.
It was in large part this claim that encouraged counter-protesters – for the most part Muslim protesters – to form mobs, to police areas, and to identify and attack people they thought were far-right agitators from outside their area.
So one of the ironic implications of the charging of Mr Asif it that our very own Prime Minister may now be guilty under the section 179 false communications offence created by the Online Safety Act 2023 of publishing false information which has a harmful effect. …...more
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