A Pakistani man has been charged with cyber-terrorism for allegedly spreading false information on his clickbait website, which is believed to have incited anti-immigration riots in the UK. Farhan Asif faces accusations of publishing a misleading article on his Channel3Now site, falsely attributing a deadly knife attack—responsible for the deaths of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed event in Southport—to a Muslim asylum seeker.
UK authorities have linked the online misinformation to several days of riots targeting mosques, hotels housing asylum seekers, and other properties, including police stations.
Read more: UK Riots Break Out After a Stabbing Spree Was Wrongly Blamed on Asylum Seekers
A senior official from Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency revealed that Asif, a 31-year-old software engineer with no journalism background, used his website solely to generate income through clickbait content.
Asif appeared in a Lahore district court on Wednesday, where he was charged with cyber-terrorism and remanded in custody for one day. The misleading article was published on Channel3Now shortly after the attack and quickly spread through viral social media posts.
Disinformation campaigns
Following the July 29 knife attack, over a dozen English towns and cities experienced unrest and riots, with officials attributing the disturbances to far-right groups inciting violence. Axel Rudakubana, who has been charged with murder and attempted murder for the stabbing, was born in the UK to Rwandan parents, a predominantly Christian nation.
False reports incorrectly identified Rudakubana as “Ali al-Shakati,” with no official confirmation for this name. Marc Owen Jones, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University, noted on X that within a day of the attack, social media posts speculated that the attacker was Muslim, a migrant, refugee, or foreigner, amassing at least 27 million impressions.
Additionally, there were false claims that the suspect had arrived in the UK on a small boat, with influencer Andrew Tate spreading misinformation on X that an “undocumented migrant” who had “arrived on a boat” was responsible for the attack on the girls in Southport.
