Tell MAMA became aware of a UK-based neo-Nazi account on X (formerly Twitter) that shared footage of the terror attacks, re-purposed to appear like a popular video game (which we are declining to mention, given the ease of its availability online), in 2025 and 2026, respectively, in posts that advocated racist violence towards individual Muslims and encouraging terror attacks on mosques.

For our investigation, however, we looked into the origins of the video, which appears to originate from a TikTok account in Brazil, which took real-world acts of terrorism, gore and murder and re-purposed them in animated forms.

In late 2025, the Christchurch terror clip reappeared as violent video game content, before TikTok removed it. As of writing, however, other acts of real-world violence repackaged through animation remain on the account.

On X, the aforementioned white supremacist account had shared that Christchurch terror footage five times (four of which occurred in 2026, with one post appearing in October 2025), with the clip bearing the watermark of the Brazilian TikToker.

After submitting several reports via X’s reporting form, which pertains to the Online Safety Act, the initial automated responses made clear that the “content will not be withheld under the legal grounds.”

A follow-up email, however, from X’s support team reversed the initial decision, adding that, “In accordance with applicable law, X is now withholding the reported content in the United Kingdom, specifically for the following legal grounds: Harassment, stalking, threats, and abuse offences, including hate offences.”

Our investigation also revealed a disturbing ease with which the memefication of the terrorism in Christchurch and the sanctification of the terrorist himself appeared on TikTok. Whilst the platform has worked to restrict certain hashtags, others have found workarounds with different hashtags (which we have flagged with the platform).

In the last week alone, we found accounts glorifying and gamifying the Christchurch terrorism with mods for another mainstream video game and providing instructions on where to download it (nor will we disclose the game in question). Other videos included graphic video game depictions of terrorism, including dehumanising the Muslim victims by portraying them as pigs.

Those accounts also glorified other mass shootings (including school shootings in the United States), further desensitising themselves and their audiences to murder, terrorism and other forms of extremist violence.

Academic research into the gamification of far-right terrorism and violent extremism (whilst not a new topic in recent decades) paid close attention to Christchurch. In the above examples, the gamification follows a “bottom-up” pattern, emerging organically online from small interconnected groups or individuals.

Some content flagged with TikTok initially received geoblocking after we flagged it under illegal content for being terrorism-related, as the platform informed us, “based on your report, we have restricted access to the reported content in the United Kingdom,” before account removal.

We reported the UK-based neo-Nazi account to the police and counter-terrorism. Tell MAMA sent its dossier on Christchurch terrorism content on TikTok to the platform.

The post How Christchurch terror content still permeates on social media appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Transport for London installed the Bengali signage following a campaign from various local politicians and its former mayor.

In a letter to Mayor Sadiq Khan in September 2021, the then mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, wrote that: “Bilingual signs have been installed at Southall and replicating this at Whitechapel would be welcomed to mark the culture of British Bangladeshis and reflect the rich heritage and diversity.”

Nasrin Khan, a policy officer, told East London Lines after the successful campaign of its importance locally: “In Tower Hamlets, Bengalis make up more than 33% of its population. So, it’s quite vital that their community recognises their interests,” adding, “As a British Bangladeshi, I am thankful to everyone who worked behind this achievement.”

Many other posts on X (formerly Twitter) called out the misleading content, showing uncropped images of the station with the English signage and highlighting other bilingual signage across London.

Other posts drew attention to the problem of homelessness and the economic disparities in London, and why much of the commentary in response to the photo made little mention of it.

Polarising language from some political figures drew criticism online amid accusations of fuelling ‘misinformation’, as Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, praised the city’s diversity and his intention to keep celebrating it. Earlier this year, polarising and misleading rhetoric and debates around the signage even got the attention of X’s owner, Elon Musk.

Some members of the public flagged racist speech and racialised conspiracies about London in response to the X post or those disseminating similar imagery, echoing reports to our service last year and into the early part of this year.

Tell MAMA highlighted this issue in our previous major report, that, “In a verified case reported on 25 January [2024], a far-right account holder called for the forced deportation of individuals in Whitechapel in East London in reply to a post from a popular right-wing page that sought to spread misinformation and culture war talking points about national identity over bilingual signage at the station.”

Google Street View has displayed the bilingual signage since 2022. Credit: Google Street View.

The bilingual signage at Whitechapel Station has been ever-present on Google Street View since July 2022.

The bilingual train signage in Southall (of English and Punjabi) has existed since the mid-nineties (including a temporary removal in 2007). Similar examples have also appeared over the decades, including the “Welcome to the Underground / Bienvenue dans le Métro” at Waterloo Station in the early 2000s.

Examples outside London over the years included, in 2011, a tiny town in the Cotswolds installing bilingual signage at its train station to help Japanese tourists. There is signage in multiple languages at the station near Bicester Village, which is extremely popular for Chinese tourists and many others.

In a wide-ranging piece for Historic England about the long history of Chinese communities across England and the various Chinatowns, Steph Chan highlighted bilingual signage in cities like Newcastle. Photographs of bilingual street signs in London’s Chinatown have appeared in photos uploaded online for decades.

On X, other examples of misinformation were couched in the language of racialised conspiracies of “conquest” by using a photograph of a bilingual sign at Leicester train station, taken in 1994, welcoming communities in English and Hindi (and removed in 1999), according to the website Railway Codes. Nor did the account mention that during the 1990s, Leicester City Council had sponsored other bilingual signage at the station, including in Spanish.

Railway Codes has documented numerous examples of bilingual and multilingual signage and posters at various railway stations over the years.

The post How a misleading photo of signage at Whitechapel Station went viral on X appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The London School of Economics study analysed 622 posts from notable far-right sources, detailing how visualisations of racist conspiracies gained more amplification (around 30 per cent) than other content.

That academic submission appeared online in response to a House of Commons Home Affairs Committee that is investigating new forms of extremism, and it also drew attention to forms of racialised dehumanisation and algorithmic bias.

That submission contrasted how the GenAI-generated images depicted Muslim men as dirty and of carrying weapons in contrast to ‘heroic’ white men and ‘vulnerable’ white women threatened by racialised migrants, imagery informed by algorithmic bias.

They attributed the mobilisation of far-right violence after the murders and stabbings in Southport to a mixture of extremist content, fake news and conspiracy content circulating online.

Earlier this year, Tell MAMA closely monitored the social media accounts of far-right foreign agitators abroad (and a possible Russian connection) who first sought to exploit the far-right violence and disorder by taking footage of violence and using AI-generated materials to call for violence towards Muslims, migrant communities, and the police, using paid-for X accounts to add a veneer of legitimacy. One such AI-generated image we captured and used for this story had a racialised depiction of a Muslim man carrying a knife and a religious text. SightEngine detected with 99 per cent certainty that GenAI had generated it.

It was, however, on Telegram that the extremism flourished, with terrorist documents uploaded and encouragement from those who operated the channel to encourage individuals within the UK to vandalise mosques, with or without financial incentives. Sky News reported in late January 2025 that seven buildings, including mosques, community centres and a primary school in London, faced such vandalism with anti-Muslim and calls for their forced removal, triggering subsequent hate crime investigations. Tell MAMA worked closely with various police forces and counter-terrorism to pass on our evidence about the far-right group.

One recommendation called for Ofcom to develop a specialised unit to monitor AI extremism and combat any disinformation it spreads. Other submissions, however, including from The Alan Turing Institute, highlighted how AI could also help counter extremism. Recent research has also raised concerns that automated detection tools on social media are inconsistent in classifying hate speech.

Tell MAMA’s report, ‘The New Norm of anti-Muslim Hate,’ published earlier this year, detailed the harms of AI-generated materials on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. The report warned that “examples flagged with Tell MAMA make full use of the technology to push racialised, stigmatising, and criminalising tropes about Muslims – externalising Muslim men and women as distinct cultural, demographic threats to mythologised, monocultural themes of national identity.” Moreover, verified cases included racist, anti-Black tropes about white women and rape targeting Black Muslim communities, with similar examples of South Asian Muslim men targeting a white woman in Union Jack clothing.

Regarding Facebook, a member of the public alerted us to a self-styled “comedy” page in December 2024, which had re-uploaded a disturbing AI-generated video (originally uploaded to TikTok) of refugees having their boat stolen by machinery and left to drown, captioned “Splish splash” with hashtags such as “#comedy”.  The platform, however, did not remove it, and as of writing, it boasts 1.8 million views.

A screenshot of the AI-generated video depicting the murder of refugees on a boat had gained 129k views on Facebook from a self-styled “comedy page”. Credit: Facebook.

A follow-up investigation into that same page months later revealed equally disturbing AI-generated videos, including one of an assault rifle firing upon and indiscriminately murdering refugees in a dinghy boat, with a caption about border “deterrence.” It received around 129k views, around a thousand thumbs up and 110 heart emoji responses, respectively.

In examples of cases flagged with Tell MAMA for the first half of 2025, some AI-generated materials linked Muslims to bestiality or promoted racist conspiracies concerning demographics. Another example repurposed old racialised memes – including one of a white male “sweeping” away Black and South Asian Muslim men and women from Europe.

The post How AI-generated images fuel anti-Muslim, anti-migrant sentiment online appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Callum Ulysses Parslow, 31, stabbed 25-year-old Nahom Hagos from Eritrea in the back and hand, resulting in serious injuries that required extensive medical treatment on April 2.

“I still look at it as a miracle. God saved me,” Mr Hagos told the media.

News of Parslow’s conviction emerged after he switched to a guilty verdict concerning an unrelated trial that imposed reporting restrictions – to sending racist and sexual messages to a Black woman online, the journalist Lizzie Dearden revealed on X (formerly Twitter).

Parslow had appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court days after the terror attack, charged with attempted murder and possession of a bladed article to which he pleaded not guilty.

That prosecution outlined his use of social media to express his neo-Nazi views and the ideological motivations of the terror attack and to intimidate “asylum seekers and those providing accommodation to asylum seekers.”

Following the terror attack, he attempted to upload his terrorist screed to X, describing that he “just did my duty to England” and tried to “exterminate” his victim.

He was, however, unable to publish his terrorist screed as he tagged in too many accounts – ranging from news sources to the likes of Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Suella Braverman, Keir Starmer, Laurence Fox, Michael Gove, David Cameron Lee Anderson, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and others. He also attempted to tag those on the far-right spectrum – including Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), Paul Golding, and Nick Griffin.

Online search results pulled from Parslow’s phone included the far-right, anti-Muslim terror attacks in Finsbury Park and Christchurch, New Zealand, respectively.

On X, Callum Parslow glorified the Christchurch terrorist, promoted white supremacist conspiracy theories about demographic changes and routinely used anti-Black racist slurs.

Parslow used two X accounts, Cyberpunknazi and iambutagardener, and the latter might have benefited from paid-for blue tick verification, according to screenshots posted on the platform from other users.

Credit: X/deletedacc0982

Some online mentions to iambutagardener redirect to deletedaccount0982, which boasts a paid-for verified status since February 2024. Some replies to the previous username criticised the platform for not removing their racist content.

Extracts of the racist and terrorist screed included antisemitic tropes that blamed them for “demonising Christianity, White people and all European culture” before blaming “Muslims and Africans” for rape and criminality, the Daily Mail reported.

West Mercia Police uncovered various Nazi-era paraphernalia at Parslow’s bedsit in Worcester, as well as a second knife, an axe, and a metal bat.

The post Neo-Nazi guilty of attempted murder after terror attack on asylum seeker appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Credit: X/@elonmusk

The disinformation came via Peter Imanuelsen (PeterSweden7), who, according to academic research at the University of Oslo, is “a well-known far-right voice in Sweden” on 31 August before Musk quoted the post a day later and captioned it “wow”.

Imanuelsen, who made historic antisemitic and Holocaust denial tweets before renouncing them later, has also been called out for misinformation on environmental issues and pro-meat issues. Other articles looked in-depth at their propensity for conspiracy theories and spreading falsehoods online. In 2022, Jewish News highlighted the outrage Imanuelsen’s appearance on GB News generated. Academics have also explored how a far-right subnetwork that included tweets from Imanuelsen undermined the integrity of Sweden’s voting system in 2018.

In reality, Ciaran Lockett, 34, pleaded guilty to violent disorder after admitting to hurling projectiles, including rocks, towards a mosque and police officers in Stoke-on-Trent on 3 August, which his partner Deana Evans filmed as far-right rioters took part in disorder and violence in Hanley, the prosecution outlined.

Both attempted to block a police van (requiring officers to physically remove them after they refused to step away from the vehicle), and both shouted at officers, “You are all protecting nonces” and “We want our country back.”

The pair continued to target officers during the disorder, requiring the use of riot shields to push them back, according to Staffordshire Police.

When officers tracked the couple to their home address, Deana Evans assaulted an officer by elbowing them in the chest after they attempted to seize her mobile phone, and she continued to resist arrest.

Evans pleaded guilty to violent disorder and assaulting an emergency worker, receiving a 20-month prison sentence.

Ciaran Lockett received a 34-month prison sentence after entering a guilty plea for violent disorder.

Judge Graeme Smith told the couple: “The seriousness of the offence means appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody.”

The headline in the StokeOnTrentLive, however, did not refer to their guilty pleas for violent disorder as it read, “Couple chanting ‘we want our country back’ jailed after Hanley riots.”

We have previously highlighted how the far-right and others are weaponising misleading headlines on social media.

Nor is the first such example back in March, when Musk boosted a similar falsehood posted from the PeterSweden7 account. The falsehood read: “Britain just jailed a man for 2 years for the crime of posting stickers opposing mass migration. Free speech has been banned in Britain.” To which Musk replied, “!!”.

Again, in reality, white supremacist Samuel Melia was guilty of creating a library of downloadable racist and white supremacist stickers and received a two-year prison sentence. He was found guilty of publishing or distributing material intending to stir up racial hatred and encouraging the commission of the offence of racially aggravated criminal damage between 2019 and 2021.

Judge Tom Bayliss KC told Melia: “I am quite sure that your mindset is that of a racist and a white supremacist.”

Elon Musk has engaged with Peter Imanuelsen numerous times on X.

Last month, Musk deleted a post promoting far-right disinformation about the creation of “detainment camps”.

The post Elon Musk boosted disinformation about couple who pleaded guilty to violent disorder appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Wayne O’Rourke, 35, came to our attention after members of the public reported an X post (formerly Twitter) that read made in late November that read: “Palestinian genocide is way more funny than you are” and other posts of concern.

O’Rourke (@Waynegb88) posted under his real name (@WayneOrourke88) last year, “Should I live stream a Quran burning? F*** Islam”, “A vote for labour is a vote for the continued islamifaction of Britain”, and that mosques would have “beheading rooms” for Christians.

As our investigation continued, we found that O’Rourke had posted AI-generated images linking Muslim men to bestiality and used “white lives matter” in some posts.

He also has a history of posting racist, anti-Black memes, evoking older historical racist tropes.

Other racist material included examples of him dehumanising refugees by calling them “foreign invaders” and later posting racialised memes linking refugees to criminality.

Weeks before his jailing, Tell MAMA wrote to the courts citing several posts we believed breached Contempt of Court laws regarding the Southport killings and how they pushed anti-Muslim conspiracies more broadly in early August. One such post had almost 700,000 impressions on X. He had also published details about the suspect on his X account, generating millions of impressions, before the judge had lifted an anonymity order.

On 2 August, posting on X, O’Rourke called for the mass deportation of “traitors” who protected mosques alongside Muslim communities following far-right violence disorder and violence after disinformation about the suspect went viral. Days earlier, he posted, “Today was a terror attack by a Muslim…heads must roll.”

The court heard that a further post urged the “people of Southport” to “get out on the street,” generating almost two million impressions as he celebrated the burning of a car in Sunderland with the caption: “Sunderland, go on lads”.

Further examples included inflammatory language, such as “Starmer has basically said it is against them. Hold the line.” And  “give them hell lads”, the BBC and other media outlets reported.

Wayne O’Rourke posted a dehumanising meme, inverting a crescent moon and star to spell “c****,” and compared Muslims to an “infestation” in early August. Tell MAMA has long continued to document in our research how racialised, dehumanising content uses animalistic or mechanistic forms of dehumanisation.

He also told the court that he made £1,400 monthly on X and boasted over 98,000 followers.

During his sentencing, Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight told O’Rourke: “You were not caught up in what others were doing, you were instigating it,” adding: “The flames fanned by keyboard warriors like you.”

The judge rejected his claims of using “dark humour” and, after pleading guilty to a charge of stirring up racial hatred, sentenced O’Rourke to three years in prison as the trial at Lincoln Crown Court concluded last Friday.

The post Three year prison sentence for X user who incited racism online appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The misinformation began after Abdullah gave interviews to the media, with a foreign account re-branding itself as @AbdullahfromUK, which was just hours earlier, posting under @Fanof_Putin.

Tell MAMA published a thread on Twitter/X regarding the duplicity yesterday. See https://x.com/TellMamaUK/status/1823027489922224250

The BBC article (which included an image of Abdullah) went online at around 1 pm, with the first tweet from the fake Abdullah account appearing on the platform with the stolen photo at 3:01 pm, with light photo edits in hopes of adding to the deception.

Google results confirmed that the Fanof_Putin account had re-branded to steal the identity of Abdullah.

The pro-Putin, pro-Hamas materials appeared around May 2024 after a two-year gap in media posts. The account holder mass deleted old posts to appear more authentic, appearing under the name @Fanof_Putin until the early afternoon of 12 August, with its origins beforehand appearing under the username @ZartashaPti years prior.

Archival captures confirmed the redirections from the previous account names. In further research into their Twitter usage, the individual behind this account shared pro-Putin materials verbatim lifted months later.

Tell MAMA researchers identified anti-Muslim remarks directed towards the fake account, with some accusing them of being “terrorist scum” before news of the falsehood grew.

The far-right agitator Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) also deleted his post after falsely accusing the security guard of supporting Hamas, The National reported.

Despite X adding a community note informing readers that the account is fake, it remained on the platform until today, having again changed its username from @AbdullahfromUK to @AbdullahU_k. The platform did not remove the account. The individual responsible, however, did delete the account before randomly returning again.

More broadly, criminalising anti-Muslim and Islamophobic memes circulating on the platform after news of the horrific stabbings in Leicester Square broke had linked Muslims to violence in London, with one such example gaining over one million impressions alone.

The real account belonging to Abdullah is here

“I would like to inform you that there are many fake accounts circulating on social media under my name,” he made clear, before holding a piece of paper listing his various, real social media pages to the camera.

So what are some tips for identifying false information from Twitter accounts?

We advise communities to check when the account first appeared on the platform via its bio and check replies by searching to:username (no spaces). Consider: Have people interacted with it as of late or at all? Or did people interact with the account under a previous name? Is their profile photo of a person? Google Images to TinEye and Yandex, are multiple reverse image search engines. There is guidance to help identify AI-generated faces.

Some accounts might also appear on archived platforms like the web archive machine by searching the full URL – this will be the Twitter dot com URL (not the X dot com version most often). You can also search the account profile link via good within quotation marks to see if the search engine indexed the profile or previous tweets. Taking screenshots is also a great way to preserve evidence and we encourage the public to report such accounts to ourselves and the platforms when they come across them.

Tell MAMA has previously provided advice and tips to improve social media literacy.

Members of the public also flagged concerns about some MailOnline coverage, where an image-based headline that read “’knifeman’ snared” made no distinction between the heroic security guard and the arrested suspect.

Members of the public contacted Tell MAMA to raise their concerns about how the original MailOnline image and headline made no distinction between Abdullah’s heroism and the arrest of the suspect.

A later version added the caption “hero security guard” above Abdullah’s head to make the distinction. Reverse image search engine TinEye captured the original version.

Credit: TinEye.

The suspect, 32-year-old Ioan Pintaru, who was charged with attempted murder and possession of a bladed article, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday morning.

The post How a pro-Putin account pretended to be the Leicester Square hero Abdullah appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Under the law, a suspect under the age of eighteen receives anonymity. Nor would a child aged between 10 and 17 and charged with a crime have their details disclosed outside the court, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

However, during the late afternoon yesterday (30 July), a name circulated online and across Twitter/X, with false, incendiary and racialised claims that the suspect was an “asylum seeker” and was “known to M16”.

By 5:30 pm, numerous accounts shared the name, reinforcing the myth – an important fixture of this falsehood came outside of the UK – from a website called “Channel 3 Now” – with a now-deleted tweet timestamped at 5:51 pm yesterday gaining at least 1.7 million impressions.

Archives of the “Channel 3 Now” news article containing the in-text falsehoods went online just after 5 pm. Minutes earlier, however, though now-deleted, a viral tweet contained the falsehood at 4:49 pm, with users promoting and quoting it by at least 4:51 pm. The “Channel 3 Now” website lifted direct sentences from the deleted tweet and put them into their subheading and body of the article without citation, archives confirm.

A thread by the BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh debunked the falsehood yesterday afternoon, highlighting the account that posted the falsehood before “Channel 3 Now”.

Just after 5 pm yesterday, we identified various other accounts promoting the falsehood verbatim – with some far-right accounts adding pro-Tommy Robinson statements, gaining hundreds of thousands of impressions on Twitter/X.

A far-right Twitter account boasting over 200k followers took a screenshot of the false headline from “Channel 3 Now” in a post that gained over one million impressions -demonstrating a bigger problem with disinformation on the platform.

More broadly, a common trend we saw was of accounts using a collage of female MPs and London Mayor Sadiq Khan holding pro-refugee statements alongside racist and misogynistic statements – blaming politicians for the stabbings.

We also logged examples of racist, anti-Black and dehumanising racist caricatures of South Asian Muslim men in AI-generated memes, presenting them as violent threats to white children (often dressed in Union Jack clothing).

Members of the public also reported a despicable tweet from Laurence Fox, who called for the ‘complete’ removal of Islam from the UK in response to the stabbing.

In an extreme example of some of the material Tell MAMA flagged with the police, an account on Twitter/X called for the “end of Muslims” and immigration in the UK.

As the hours passed and Merseyside Police debunked the name published online, the website “Channel 3 Now” deleted the offending tweet but quietly edited Facebook to remove the false claims.

The academic Marc Owen-Jones also explored the viral reach of the falsehood – from far-right accounts to more mainstream figures.

Times Radio interviewed the investigative journalist Katherine Denkinson to discuss the falsehood.

Reuters Fact Check also debunked the falsehood, echoing claims from Merseyside Police that the suspect was born in the UK.

Tell MAMA’s investigation unearthed a Twitter user based in India who had pretended to be a UK-based Muslim user glorifying the horrific stabbings before Twitter/X suspended the account holder in the hope of sowing further unrest. In some cases, responding to that fake tweet, some called for deportations of Muslims more broadly.

Our investigation found that an anti-Muslim troll from India sought to take advantage of the horrific stabbing attacks to further an anti-Muslim agenda by pretending to be a Muslim and endorsing the violence.

We found that the user had previously spread anti-Muslim and Islamophobic statements on Twitter, with archives confirming a location of Jabalpur.

Outside agitations included from the United States, with overt white supremacists propagating the falsehood, jumping on hashtags and quote-tweeting mainstream news sources to accounts with verified ticks re-posting the same false information highlighted above.

In other examples, websites hosted by individuals banned from entering the UK due to their anti-Muslim views, namely Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, had also shared the falsehood before both “Jihad Watch” and the “Geller Report” had quietly deleted their respective articles.

In a statement today, our Director Iman Atta condemned the misinformation online that helped fuel the targeting of Southport Mosque, making clear that: “We must also work collectively in our politics, media and wider society to challenge and remove scapegoating and stigmatising narratives that collectively link refugees, migrants, Muslims and other minority communities to violence and crime.

Nor can we accept passivity from social media platforms on harmful misinformation. Change must come, and platforms must do more to tackle misinformation.”

The statement adds about the added fear some Muslims are feeling in the current climate after contacting us.

Locals in Southport also helped clean up the mess left by the far-right who violently targeted the mosque and the police – injuring 39 officers after hurling bricks and other objects.

MP Patrick Hurley condemned the far-right violence as they had “hijacked the grief” of the town and families, the BBC reported.

Jenni Stancombe, who tragically lost her seven-year-old daughter Elsie, pleaded publicly for the disorder and violence to stop.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, made clear that social media companies “need to take some responsibility” for the material shared on their platforms. Our research identified worrying tweets about the home secretary we also flagged.

To reiterate: the focus should be on the families and those impacted, we like many others grieve for the loss of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar.

The post How misinformation and disinformation about the Southport stabbings went viral appeared first on TELL MAMA.

    (Tell MAMA has recorded a 335% increase in anti-Muslim hate cases, comparing the last 4 months to those in 2022/2023)

Contact: Iman Atta OBE

Tel: 0800 456 12 26

Email: info@tellmamauk.org

Embargo: None – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

As the leading hate crime monitoring agency on measuring anti-Muslim hate, Tell MAMA recorded over 2,000 anti-Muslim cases in the four months that followed Hamas’s deadly terror attacks on October 7. This is the largest recorded number of cases in four months, since Tell MAMA was founded in 2011.

Following the publication of our previous briefing on December 20, Tell MAMA can confirm that in total, of the 2,010 cases post October 7th 2023, 901 occurred offline with 1,109 online cases. In comparison with the same timescale a year earlier, this demonstrates a 335% increase in anti-Muslim hate cases.

(In stark contrast, between 7 October 2022 and 7 February 2023, Tell MAMA recorded 310 offline cases and 290 online cases, respectively.)

Consistent with our previous statistical bulletins, a geographic breakdown for offline cases is as follows:

Tell MAMA received 576 cases in London, 71 in the northwest, 27 in South Yorkshire, 39 in West Yorkshire, 33 in the East Midlands and 41 in the West Midlands. In other areas, like the Southeast, we recorded 26 and in the Southwest of England, we recorded 27 cases. The final geographic areas concern Scotland (21), Wales (9), and the Northeast (31).

Regarding the types of cases recorded, Tell MAMA received 535 cases of abusive behaviour, 77 threats, 83 assaults, 79 acts of vandalism, 69 cases of discrimination, 39 acts of hate speech and 19 examples of anti-Muslim literature. And in over 65% of these cases, women were the target of such attacks. This once again demonstrates that British Muslim women have borne the majority of the brunt of anti-Muslim hate during this time.

Like all Tell MAMA cases, the figures are subject to further revision and analysis. We ensure that evidence is corroborated where possible and that cases are reviewed.

 Statement by the Director of Tell MAMA – Iman Atta OBE

“We are deeply concerned about the impacts that the Israel and Gaza war are having on hate crimes and on social cohesion in the U.K. Hate crimes against British Muslims have substantially risen and our data clearly demonstrates this. This rise in anti-Muslim hate is unacceptable and we hope that political leaders speak out to send a clear message that anti-Muslim hate, like antisemitism, is unacceptable in our country. There really is no space for hate and more than ever, it is essential that we sustain, nurture and protect the bonds that we have between communities, so that we all feel valued and safe in our communities and in our country”.

Street Level Anti-Muslim Abuse

Examples of street-level abuse and harassment flagged with our service since our December bulletin include a case of a Muslim woman in Islamic clothing who described the assault she faced when on a bus in East London. During the assault one of the perpetrators made inflammatory statements to her including, “you Muslims are troublemakers”. A hate crime investigation is ongoing, as we continue to provide support and liaise with the Metropolitan police.

In another London-based case, a woman described how someone vandalized their car with a Nazi swastika.

Outside of London, street-level abuse included cases of Muslim women harassed in the street and called “terrorists”, a classic anti-Muslim trope.

Tell MAMA is also liaising with Durham Police over a written death threat to worshippers at a mosque in Darlington on the 29th of December. Furthermore, local Muslim and Palestinian communities spoke of their fear about rising levels of racism and hate locally when speaking to the Northern Echo newspaper.

Another case included the targeting of a Muslim family home after someone daubed “Hamas” on their front door.

Online Anti-Muslim Abuse

In the online world, comparisons continue to show a sharp rise in reported cases. For example, in January 2023 Tell MAMA received 18 online anti-Muslim hate cases. In January 2024, we received 70 cases.

Following our December bulletin, we continued to record cases on public transport. One case of note is the targeting of individuals expressing visible support for Palestine (be it wearing a badge or carrying a Palestinian flag) who faced abuse, including anti-Muslim slurs like being a “terrorist”.

Statements by far right sympathisers post October 7th have included comments around demonstrations for a Gaza ceasefire that have included, “f*** off” to a Muslim country and do so”.

We also note that X, (formerly known as Twitter), suspended an account that asked users “Who’d win in the upcoming civil war in Britain?” providing two options: “British” or “Muslim”; the post attracted various replies from individuals who expressed overt anti-Muslim sentiments, boasted Crusader imagery in their bios and who made racialised and extremist comments about Muslim communities.

Reference Points

Our previous bulletins can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here. The December bulletins appear here.

We attach the same advice and safety tips below as with previous bulletins. We urge Muslim communities and mosques to keep them to hand.

Standing together, not apart

In the current climate, we continue to urge communities to stand together and practice compassion and care for each other and for themselves; to be upstanders and intervene safely to stop racism and hate crimes.

Safety advice

We urge mosques and Islamic centres to download our mosque safety advice resources and to consider our updated mosque security advice service.

We have safety advice in both English and Arabic – and urge Muslim communities to remain vigilant when out and about.

Our counselling service is accessible to anyone in need. If you would like to access the service or find out more about it, e-mail us at counselling@tellmamauk.org

ENDS

Notes

1) Tell MAMA is a national service supporting victims of anti-Muslim hate through casework, counselling, advocacy, legal and signposting support.

2) Tell MAMA was founded in 2012 and is supported by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

The post Greatest Rise in Reported Anti-Muslim Hate Cases to Tell MAMA since Oct 7th appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Mullins also tweeted  minutes earlier, “I am on it, and it’s time to dump the Muslim mayor” before his account suspension when asked about the London mayorship campaign next year.

Twitter, rebranded under Elon Musk’s ownership as X, makes clear, “You may not wish, hope, or express desire for harm. This includes (but is not limited to) hoping for others to die,” despite criticism and concerns raised for changes for how the platform now handles hateful and harmful content more generally.

In statements given to The Telegraph and TalkTV, Mr Mullins apologised and made clear: “I unreservedly apologise and withdraw my remarks. I went too far. Twitter is right to take the action it did.”

TalkTV had earlier deleted a tweet that asked, “Did X overreact?” following Mr Mullins’s account suspension.

The cycling platform Road dot cc had also published an article about the account suspension the previous day.

Responding to the abhorrent tweets, Tell MAMA Director Iman Atta made clear in a statement, “We are appalled and horrified by Charlie Mullins’s tweet on 27 August suggesting that someone ‘should kill’ London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Statement from our Director Iman Atta after Charlie Mullins tweeted that someone 'should kill' Sadiq Khan and that it's 'time to drop the Muslim mayor'.

No politician should ever face death threats or identity-based abuse. Nor should such violent language be used in politics. pic.twitter.com/dDKUyEAvVi

— Tell MAMA UK (@TellMamaUK) August 31, 2023

No politician should ever face death threats or identity-based abuse. Nor should such menacing and violent language be used in political debates or discussions.

Mr Mullins also tweeted before his account suspension that it was time to ‘dump the Muslim mayor,’ which is also unacceptable language.

Mr Mullins has since apologised and withdrawn his horrendous remarks.”

Tell MAMA highlighted such concerns in our groundbreaking report ‘A Decade of anti-Muslim Hate’ that included alarming findings about how the platform had recanted warnings on dangerous links for overtly fascist websites, which contravenes existing rules in place since July 2020.

A second example further exposed ongoing gaps in the usage of the policy when concerning the far-right, including the removal of a warning link after Britain First returned to the platform last October and later gained organisational validation on the platform.

The post Twitter suspends Charlie Mullins for ‘someone should kill’ Sadiq Khan tweet appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Tell MAMA remains a trusted flagger on the platform, despite raising concerns previously about the potential direction it may take under the ownership of Elon Musk – owing to concerns about increased racism and hate on platform (which Musk denies).

Tell MAMA received an update today (December 8) confirming the account suspension following our initial reporting on December 1, 2022.

A member of the public flagged the @NoballsBobby account weeks earlier, concerned about its racist targeting of the UK’s first minority ethnic prime minister Rishi Sunak, its promotion of Enoch Powell and anti-Muslim conspiracies about a so-called “Islamic takeover” of the Home Office.

Other racialised memes and tropes flagged to us had linked Muslims and refugees broadly to criminality, rape, and child sexual exploitation.
Twitter removed the above examples for breaching its policies on hateful conduct, which cumulatively resulted in a permanent account suspension.

Chillingly, the account propagated the racist conspiracy of a so-called “white genocide” – ideas that inspired various acts of white supremacist terror and violence.

Credit: Twitter.com

This is the second example in recent weeks of how we helped remove high-profile white supremacists from the platform – we previously reported on the suspension of an account that praised the Dover terrorist Andrew Leak.

When reporting such harmful and hateful materials, Twitter allows users to add additional context (280 characters) that might help explain why it breaches such policies. Twitter, however, cautions that it will “guarantee that we’ll take action based on the info provided here” – but it is a step we encourage users to consider when reporting. In addition, as a third party, Tell MAMA is happy to take this step if requested.

The option to add additional context appears towards the end of the reporting form when done via Twitter’s API.

Twitter also provides a more detailed reporting form via its website, allowing individuals to add more context than the API platform allows.

Get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Alternatively, please leave us a WhatsApp message at 0734 184 6086.

The post Twitter suspends another white supremacist after Tell MAMA investigation appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Our investigation began after a member of the public got in touch, flagging tweets from the account made on November 8, one of which called for Leak to receive a state funeral and a Victoria Cross medal.

A screenshot we captured before Twitter suspended the account holder following our complaint.

A further investigation revealed racist comments about deputy prime minister Dominic Raab being a “Jewish puppet of the WEF and UN”.

The racist currency of @BryanMc82451905 would see them trade in racialised, dehumanising comments about Muslims and refugees. Examples included myths of demographic change and so-called “Islamification” whilst linking both groups to criminality.

Examples of anti-Black racism appeared in archives, with some targeting the late Stephen Lawrence, murdered by racists in 1993. That inflammatory, hateful tweet read, “Blacks want to tear down Lord Nelson from his Column. No doubt they will replace him with St Stephen”.

Our investigation coincided with a report in The Independent that far-right individuals or groups are calling for attacks on refugee centres and hotels. On Telegram, the article described those who described the terrorist Leak as a “hero” and a “legend” who “shows that one of us [white people] has got a spine”.

In recent years, our research has detailed how a subsection of social media accounts reported to us praised or encouraged similar attacks following the far-right terror attacks in Finsbury Park and Christchurch, New Zealand. Examples of the latter resulted in criminal convictions for terrorism offences, as the murder of 51 Muslims continues to influence those convicted of far-right terror offences in the UK.

YouTube, however, did not remove comments that denied the terrorism or comments claiming it was a “false flag”.

Several high-profile far-right Telegram pages pushed similar “false flag” conspiracies, including the street defence movement Britain First, which wrote, “How on earth did the media manage to get such a perfectly timed photo of the attack on the Dover migrant processing centre?” on the evening of October 30.

As our briefing paper on Andrew Leak revealed, he was in the thrall of various conspiracy theories, notably around Covid.

Tell MAMA remains a trusted flagger across all major social media platforms and encourages the public to flag such material with us so we can escalate with the platforms or the police. Despite our reservations about Twitter’s direction, we will continue advocating for communities.

'We in Tell MAMA are greatly concerned about Twitter's direction. We know that many who worked on issues such as online safety and safeguarding have lost their jobs. Nevertheless, we will always advocate for the safety of communities on this platform.' pic.twitter.com/HqeQLcXKVI

— Tell MAMA UK (@TellMamaUK) November 7, 2022

Following our investigation, we flagged the @BryanMc82451905 account with the police to investigate further.

Get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Alternatively, please leave us a WhatsApp message at 0734 184 6086.

The post Twitter banned racist account who praised the Dover terrorist Andrew Leak appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Councillor Steve Flood, who now sits as an Independent for the ward of Sprites, retweeted from the @steveflood3 account content that read, “I do not believe Islam should be allowed in the UK” and “ISLAM DOES NOT ALLOW FREE SPEECH and it is being allowed to grow from strength to strength in Britain”.

Flood had listed “borough conservative councillor” on their Twitter bio.

The local Conservative MP Tom Hunt called the retweets “cleary Islamophobic” and had no place in a mainstream political party, the East Anglian Daily Times reported.

The content seen by Tell MAMA and shared with local Conservatives in Ipswich and forwarded to party head office included retweeting content that called for a ban on halal and kosher slaughter, a total ban on immigration, and conspiracies about halal meat labelling. And boosting an inflammatory racialised falsehood that read, “A mainly Muslim Army is being ushered into our Country by the HOUR! Fit, Adult, young Men. Legions of them, from all Cultures and Countries, of which we know NOTHING! 40K so far since 2021. Remember, our own ARMY has just under 80K. Our National Security is in grave Danger!”.

Evidence of Cllr Steve Flood retweeting calls for a ban on kosher and halal slaughter in the UK.

The anti-Muslim falsehood as retweeted by Cllr Steve Flood.

The image used in the original tweet was a photograph of refugees in Calais, taken in 2018.

Examples of the anti-Muslim and Islamophobic retweets that resulted in Cllr Flood’s suspension from the local Conservative party.

Anti-LGBT+ content found by Tell MAMA included a retweet from Cllr Flood from an account holder who called Pride a “sexual deviancy fest” and from a separate account that claimed, “Pride is now just a celebration of perverts, narcissists and pedo apologists.”

Anti-LGBT content Cllr Flood retweeted before locking their Twitter account.

Councillor Flood tweeted statements like “A once great country is being destroyed, by welcoming illegal immigrants” and “You are all paying for illegal immigrants, at £5,000,000 a day and rising,” blaming them for failures to secure dental appointments, rentals, or hospital appointments.

A conspiracy about halal meat labelling appeared on Cllr Flood’s Twitter timeline.

Other councillors documented their misuse of Twitter in 2021 to spread anti-Muslim falsehoods.

In a statement, the Conservative Association said: “On Friday morning the Ipswich Conservative Association suspended Councillor Steve Flood following allegations that appeared in the press on Thursday.

“The suspension includes removal of the whip from the Conservative group at the borough council.”

A meeting on Wednesday (August 24) will decide the future of Steve Flood in the Conservative party.

We continue to offer all councils and local authorities bespoke training on social media best practices and digital trends around anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia.

UPDATE 26/08: Cllr Steve Flood remains suspended from the local Conservative party pending an inquiry. The local MP, Tom Hunt, said, “I want them to know that as their MP, I feel very strongly that there is no place in politics or social media for Islamophobia,” the East Anglian Daily Times reported.

We will continue to provide more updates where possible.

The post Revealed: Cllr Steve Flood retweeted call for ban on kosher and halal slaughter appeared first on TELL MAMA.

[This post contains video, click to play]

Melanin Skate Gals & Pals is a London-based collective that empowers minoritised and marginalised groups through skateboarding and social action, per their Instagram.

The advert begins with Aamira’s initial skateboarding troubles. And, by its conclusion, thanks to the support and friendships made in the collective, she can perform the “drop-in” successfully which brings collective cheer and celebration.

A press release from the company details how the ‘We’re better, connected’ campaign, created by Adam & Eve/DDB, forms part of Virgin Media’s ambition for more inclusivity in their advertising campaign. Their internal research revealed the inclusivity of skating communities both online and offline, which they sought to represent with this campaign.

The campaign had its television launch during the broadcast of Manchester United’s FA Cup tie against Middlesbrough on February 4.

The Drum praised the campaign, calling it their advert of the day when it premiered.

Paul Knott, creative director at Adam & Eve/DDB, said: “The campaign is an example of how technology can unite people from different backgrounds and communities, enabling them to share in their pursuits, often in unexpected and serendipitous ways.” Simon Groves, the Executive Director of Brand and Marketing at Virgin Media O2, mentioned the new campaign: “shows just how integral the internet is in inspiring us, connecting us, and helping us achieve our dreams, no matter what our background.”

On social media, Tell MAMA documented several reports of racist speech targeting the campaign, with some falsely accusing the company of pushing a “woke” agenda that a “majority does not recognise” to others pushing hate speech about demographics with the infamous “#WhiteLivesMatters” hashtag.

One example of the racist response to the Virgin Media campaign, as reported to us by a member of the public.

We continue to urge the public to report such content across any major social media platform, given our trusted flagger status.

We've been made aware of some disgusting racist comments made in response to a @virginmedia campaign that centres on a hijabi Muslim skateboarder – we’ve since flagged them with Twitter for removal.

If you see hate online. Report in confidence.#WeStandTogether pic.twitter.com/ycVJR3PqFR

— Tell MAMA UK (@TellMamaUK) February 15, 2022

More broadly, stories about the Melanin Skate Gals & Pals collective have appeared in other media outlets in recent months. For example, the zine writer and fashion photographer Martus Chai photographed members of Melanin Skate Gals & Pals which was featured in the i-D magazine last December. Chai reflected how the collective creates a safe space for queer and POC skaters, mentioning that fashion “became a way to embrace a marginalised group within our community.”

Marie Mayassi, who founded the collective, told This Girl Can, “I really encourage anyone who wants to start skateboarding to actually try and find a collective where they feel like they fit, but also to not hesitate to start their own initiative if they don’t feel like any of the collectives are catering for their feelings.”

You can get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or message us on WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086 or message us on Twitter or Facebook by following @tellmamauk.

The post New Virgin Media campaign features Muslim skateboarder in hijab appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The racist tweet shared on the evening of October 16 takes a video from a Mawlid (Milad un Nabi) celebration in Rotherham’s town centre in 2010 out of context to push harmful and racialised falsehoods that risk real-world violence to Muslims in Rotherham and beyond.

Circled is the old Alliance & Leicester bank which ceased to exist from 2011 onwards. The former Santander building has been vacant since 2014 in this part of Rotherham.

Another way to verify this falsehood is in its background – namely, the old Alliance & Leicester, which ceased to exist in 2011 after merging with Santander – the storefront has been vacant since 2014.

As of writing, the video accrued over forty-five thousand views, as some tweets in reply called for violence – including statements calling for the army to shoot them, racist conspiracies about ‘trojan horses’, to calls for mass deportations.

The investigation also unearthed a second racialised falsehood posted in reply to the above video and falsely claims to show the “changing face of Rotherham” over forty years, with the second image showing Muslims praying on the street in front of various police officers.

The origin of the historical photo is partly explained once again by YouTube. We traced its origins to a video montage of Rotherham in the 1950s and 1960s, first uploaded in 2014, where the image itself appears at the 2:58 timestamp.

Credit: YouTube/Billy244.

The image would later appear in a 2018 Rotherham Advertiser article about local history from Melvyn Jones and Michael Bentley.

Regarding the second image, that photo, taken on September 5, 2015, by local photographer Luis Arroyo, had captioned it, “Prayer time during the Rotherham Unite Against Fascism’s demo today.” As with 2021, in 2015 also, the image removed from its context became a lightning rod for anti-Muslim and Islamophobic agitators. Arroyo wrote on September 10, 2015, “It is a real shame all those negative comments flying about too.”

The men photographed were part of a broader anti-fascist protest in the town, one month after the racist murder of Muslim pensioner Mushin Ahmed.

That same day, Britain First, the far-right street defence movement arrived in the town, resulting in 800 police officers from forces nationwide attending.

The events of that day also drew attention to injustice and the subsequent acquittal of the Rotherham 12 – Asian men cleared of violent disorder charges for protecting their communities from the far-right in 2016 and 2018, with articles providing further context appearing that year, addressing issues with policing and communities mobilising to support the twelve men.

Its false caption, “College Street, Rotherham, 40 years apart,” appeared on Twitter on the afternoon of October 17, before a day later, appearing with identical language on the social media channels of the far-right agitator Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson).

Tell MAMA has debunked various falsehoods that gained traction on Twitter, notably during the first national lockdown last year.

Update (19/10/2021): Following our investigation, Twitter has since suspended the far-right account holder who published the disinformation and removed a tweet that called on the army to shoot Muslims. It further demonstrates the importance of reporting such violent and harmful content, and we thank those who did.

We will continue to provide updates to this investigation where possible.

The post Debunked: far-right Twitter falsehoods about Muslims in Rotherham appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Tobias Powell, 32, from Wythering Close in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, appeared at Worthing Magistrates Court on April 16 and was found guilty of four counts using threatening, abusive or insulting words to stir up racial hatred, contravening section 19 (1) of the Public Order Act 1986.

On Twitter, between July 31, 2018, and October 8, 2018, Powell spread racist messages calling for violent civil war, used white supremacist talking points, and supported the banned neo-Nazi terror group National Action.

They also posted a photo of their Nazi tattoo, according to the CTPSE press release.

When CTPSE officers searched the address of Tobias Powell on December 13, 2019, they seized white supremacist literature and various electronic devices – Powell had used Adolf Hitler as his Apple ID name.

Weeks after the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a neo-Nazi terrorist in June 2016, Powell tweeted that the late MP was an “enemy of the people”.

The CTPSE press release also reveals that Powell emailed the-then prime minister Theresa May, referring to her as a ‘snake’ in an email with ‘Brexit stitch-up’ in the subject line. A letter sent to Powell’s local MP Nick Gibbs referenced Sharia law.

The conviction generated various questionable headlines, however. The Chichester Observer headlined its coverage “Bognor Regis man with Nazi tattoo convicted over string of hate crimes” as Planet Radio headlined their coverage: “Bognor man convicted of hate crimes over racist social media tweets”.

The Telegraph referred to Powell as a “Far right extremist” in its headline and as a “far right sympathiser” in the article’s opening sentence.

In contrast, the MailOnline dropped its original headline, “far-right sympathiser who called for convicted of hate crime”, to a more accurate version, which now reads: “Nazi-tattooed far-right thug, 32, who called for a race war and had Apple ID under Adolf Hitler’s name faces jail”.

An earlier version of the MailOnline headline before its correction.

The original headline still appears on social media image crawls, as the original URL string reads “Far-right-sympathiser-32-called-race-war-convicted-hate-crime-offences.html”.

The Argus newspaper, in contrast, correctly headlined their story, “Bognor Neo Nazi Tobias Powell admits racist hate crimes”.

Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of CTPSE, said: Whilst this was not a terrorism case, the nature of the rhetoric Powell had shared on social media, meant that it was only right for specialist officers from Counter Terrorism Policing to conduct a thorough investigation.

“We know there is a fine line between hate speech and terrorism. Showing support for terrorist organisations is not acceptable and if you do that, you should expect to be investigated by us.”

Chief Inspector Jon Carter, Arun and Chichester District Commander for Sussex Police, said: “This case shows the importance of thorough investigation of any use of the Internet to spread hate and dangerous material,” adding that Powell posed no risk to the local community.

UPDATE (14/05/21):

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The petition, titled “If the statues go, the Mosques go too,” called on those who support Black Lives Matters to target mosques (as apparent symbols of slavery) and had gained over 500 signatures in one day before its removal for breaching the platform’s rules on hate speech.

On Twitter, the petition had generated various harmful comments, with one such tweet calling for the use of bulldozers.

Credit: Twitter.

Others tweeted that the “mosques can go anyway…”.

Signatories on the change.org petition included individuals based in the United States, Chile, Spain, and Australia, from the location information provided on some profiles who had made public statements after signing the petition.

Some UK-based users who signed the petition had made racist comments, referring to Muslims as “medieval savages” as others made broader racialised anti-Muslim and Islamophobic comments – from accusing all Muslims of being terrorists to forms of ‘cultural othering’, including about the perceived number of mosques in a ‘Christian country’.

Change.org has clear policies on hate speech, limiting content (including petitions, usernames, comments) that “attack or malign an entire class of people based on characteristics such as their age, color, disability, ethnic origin, gender identity, nationality, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, medical condition, or veteran status.”

The platform also holds discretion when enforcing its Terms, including the closing of accounts or removing harmful content.

We welcome the swift action regarding hateful content on their platform.

The post Change.org removes petition calling for the destruction of mosques after removal of slave trader statues appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Credit: Twitter.

The short video, which first appeared on Twitter on April 24, coinciding with the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, and would also appear a day later, after the journalist Aina Khan, shared the video, having remarked on its ethereal beauty, adding that public broadcast was a trial.

The azaan (Islamic call to prayer) is floating along the streets of west London for the first time, in a Ramadan unlike any other. I will never get over how ethereal it sounds.

Video from @almanaar mosque in west London who are trialling playing it in public. #RamadanMubarak pic.twitter.com/HgzZwE79GO

— Aina J. Khan (@ainajkhan) April 25, 2020

Within hours, and in the days ahead, the video was presented in a different, more harmful context when messages began to link the clip to racialised conspiracies of forced demographic changes.

As reported last week, the racialised and conspiracist manipulation of out-of-context videos had appeared on far-right Telegram channels had re-circulated from the same Twitter accounts, with one account boasting more than 60,000 video views – a ten-fold increase on what some of the earlier, non-inflammatory posts had generated.

Academics have explored how the far-right continues to weaponise visual content on social media with attention paid to the neo-fascist British National Party (BNP). Broader research explores the use of meme culture, and how the far-right adapt to new technologies for hyperpartisan, ideological pursuits.

A regional BNP Twitter account had captioned the shared video, “Retweet if you think this is Noise Pollution.”

This idea of ‘noise pollution’ and mosques has been explored by various academics, who have compared complaints about the East London Mosque broadcasting the adhan over loudspeakers in 1986 to similar protests against the Liverpool Mosque founded by Abdullah Quilliam in 1889.

Due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown, mosques remain closed nationwide, and to remind Muslims of their togetherness in this holy month, mosques in parts of Europe, the United States, and in Canada, have been granted special dispensation to broadcast the azaan over loudspeakers.

In the city of Halifax, for example, in the Ontario province of Canada, approval was given to broadcast the azaan over loudspeakers at sunset throughout Ramadan.

In Minneapolis, in the United States, Mayor Jacob Frey granted a permit for Dar Ul Hijra Mosque to broadcast the azaan five times a day for the public during Ramadan, with loudspeakers directing the prayers towards Muslims living in the Riverside Plaza apartments, as to not to disturb businesses and other residents.

Before Ramadan began, other cities like Paterson, in New Jersey, announced changes to its ordinance to allow for exceptions to its noise regulations for various religious worship. Some mosques in Paterson, however, were publicly broadcasting the azaan, others do not. Officials added that there was no record of mosques in Paterson receiving noise summons for broadcasting the call to prayer.

This gesture offers a source of solace and comfort for Muslims observing the lockdown, with mosque doors remaining closed throughout the holy month.

Tell MAMA continues to urge Twitter to deal with the far-right accounts pushing such incendiary, misleading content.

The post How the far-right weaponised a clip of the call to prayer to spread hate on Twitter appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The offending tweet, published on March 26, from a user who claimed ‘to have spoken to the mosque’ and was ‘horrified’ to find that it was still open, adding that the people inside could be ‘super spreaders’ of the virus, and urged the police to act.

Credit: Twitter.

The Shrewsbury Muslim Centre, however, has continued to observe the lockdown since the government’s advice changed earlier this month. In a statement published on March 19, the centre committee, as with many places of worship, spoke of their acute concern about the virus and would, therefore, cease holding Friday (Jummah) prayers until further notice.

Credit: Shrewsbury Muslim Centre.

Shropshire Police tweeted yesterday evening that “Probably because there is no Mosque in Shrewsbury. There is a prayer centre & it has been checked and is fully compliant with the current government requirements.”

Other Twitter users condemned the flagrant attempt at stirring up anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia, writing, “Shropshire Police thanks for standing up in favour off against the hater who want to pour petrol and stir up tensions in the community.” One user added that “There isn’t a mosque in Shrewsbury ya daft racist,” as another user replied, “You’re a super spreader of lies and racism.”

Some condemned the user for wasting police time and resources, adding that, “Wasting police time, Russ. You’re nowhere near my town. Thank goodness.”

The tweet did attract attention from a plethora of nationalist and far-right accounts, but a clear majority of the replies condemned the malicious tweet.

When asked what they were going to do about such hateful conduct, Shropshire Police replied that it had been “all duly recorded & reported.”

Tell MAMA urges users to report the malicious tweet, as others have done so. We welcome the quick debunking by Shropshire Police and others who challenged this malicious and inflammatory tweet.

You can get advice from our confidential and free helpline on 0800 456 1226. Or through our free iOS or Android apps. Report through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086.

The post Shropshire Police debunk malicious tweet about a mosque ‘ignoring’ the coronavirus lockdown appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The tweet, which appeared on the platform at 9:43 am on March 25 from a far-right account (which also promotes antisemitic and Islamophobic conspiracies, including the far-right obsessive interest in the obscure concept of taqiyya) has gained over sixteen-hundred retweets as of writing.

The tweet tried to claim that the Muslims were ‘arrogantly’ ignoring medical advice. But after researching the origins of the video, after several members of the public reported the tweet to our service, Tell MAMA can confirm, with a high degree of confidence, that the video is several weeks old, a version of which appeared on Facebook on March 3. Photographs, however, uploaded to the platform on February 28, shared in a negative review of Wembley Central Masjid, from a Muslim man, had lamented how the mosque had been closed for six weeks (over an internal dispute), adding that Friday (Jummah) prayers had to take place on a pavement in the rain.

Six days before the viral anti-Muslim and Islamophobic tweet from the @FormerWorshiper account, the mosque had announced on Facebook that it had suspended all congregational services and activities, reflecting the updated governmental advice regarding the coronavirus pandemic.

Credit:Facebook/WembleyCentralMasjidOfficial

Tell MAMA urged users to report the inflammatory tweet yesterday afternoon.

We encourage people to report this misleading tweet, the video, from our initial research, is several weeks old (if not older) and was filmed *before* the advice on social gatherings changed. This is not a new video. And is generating anti-Muslim and Islamophobic responses. pic.twitter.com/DMesZlLLHO

— TellMAMAUK (@TellMamaUK) March 25, 2020

Others have done the same, writing, “FAKE. It hasn’t rained in London in days. Also, look at this racist’s timeline and report it.”

Various Twitter users also highlighted the lack of rain in London (as the video was filmed during in rainy conditions), and condemned its deliberate stoking of anti-Muslim and Islamophobic tensions.

Some were taken in or emboldened by the propaganda, writing, “How about they are arrested & deported for breaking the curfew!!! Remind me, who rules Britain?!!!”. Others called for the police to disperse an event which had occurred weeks prior, as one user even responded that the army should intervene. More ideologically motivated accounts added that Islam should be banned.

Several far-right channels on the encrypted messaging app Telegram would share a GIF of the video, including Britain First, hours later, gaining several thousand views.

We have urged Twitter to revise its policies and allow users to report tweets designed to mislead that stoke racial and religious hatred. And make that request again.

In an effort to promote social media and internet research skills, we have released an educational video for communities.

We've developed some practical tips in spotting and countering #fakenews, especially related to #COVID19.

Watch. Share. Educate. pic.twitter.com/pAcdTclUAP

— TellMAMAUK (@TellMamaUK) March 25, 2020

The post No, the Muslims praying in this video aren’t ignoring the coronavirus lockdown. It’s far-right fake news appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Hopkins, was, for a brief time, suspended from Twitter for breaching its hateful conduct policies, but the ban was temporary.

The tweet, posted at 9:31 pm on February 23, begins, “Beautiful Indian lady punched in the face by Muslim man in racist attack in Birmingham.”

Credit: Twitter.

Hopkins then offers a partial unattributed quote from Meera Solanki (the woman assaulted), who described how the man, described as Asian in police reports, approached them during dinner, as he “seemed to have a problem with me being an Indian girl with a multi-racial group of friends”.

Ms Solanki was punched and briefly knocked unconscious after attempting to stop the same man from directing his anti-Chinese racism towards her friend Mandy Huang. This individual had followed the women after they had left the restaurant and made comments towards Ms Huang like “take your f****** Coronavirus and take it back home“ and referred to her as a “dirty c***k”.

Katie Hopkins, of course, provides no evidence to show this perpetrator is Muslim, but her use of the hashtag ‘#LittePakistan’ serves two distinct and revealing functions: it racialises and stereotypes that Muslims in Birmingham are Pakistani (despite 8,681 British-Indians in Birmingham self-identifying as Muslim in the 2011 Census); and, from an ideological position, seeks to foster divisions between Indian and Pakistani communities, given her pro-Modi posturings last year regarding Kashmir. She appeared outside of the United Nations in Geneva with David Vance according to an interview with ANI News last September. Some, however, have questioned the veracity of Hopkins claim of speaking inside of the UN building.

Academics have documented, more broadly, how at around the same time, the European far-right had made solidarity visits to Kashmir, even after foreign journalists and politicians had been denied entry, following the scrapping of Article 370, which stripped the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its relative political autonomy, forcing it to abide by the Indian constitution.

This example of racialising Muslims, functions through the deliberate blurring of Asian and Pakistani communities, despite not all Pakistanis identifying as Muslim. In Birmingham alone, just over 6 per cent of British-Pakistanis self-identified with other religions (as 7,177 chose not to state their religion), including 597 Christians, 441 Sikhs, and 213 Hindus in the 2011 Census.

Credit: Nomis.

Racialisation, for other academics, concerns the process of identifying and stereotyping groups through cultural identifiers like religion and comes with spatial and geographic significance for discriminated groups. The idea of racialisation also “relies upon asserted inherentisms, and it reinforces cultural hierarchies and privilege.” Others argue that racialisation impacts Muslim men and women in gendered ways, as “Men are more likely to be viewed as if they are disloyal and a threat to national security.” Whereas for Muslim women, they argue, the hijab is ‘othered’ as a cultural oddity or threat, raising questions about national identity and loyalty. Discrimination in housing in education creates the racialisation of geographical space

Other examples of anti-Chinese and anti-East Asian racism following the coronavirus outbreak have included physical acts of violence, racial bullying in schools, discrimination (on public transport and in places of work), and microaggressions where individuals have moved away from them on public transport. Several universities have issued press releases condemning racism against their students.

A spokesperson for the Birmingham Chinese society has stated that abuse has always existed but some were using the virus as a pretext for racial harassment, abuse, and violence.

She explained: “We wear masks to protect others from our coughs and sneezes. Some wear them as protection against pollution. Some women wear them because they don’t want to be seen without make-up. We do it to protect others, not ourselves.”

Anyone with information about this ssault is urged to contact West Midlands Police by quoting the crime reference number 20BW/39330Q/20 if you have information about the assault by calling 101 anytime, or by using their Live Chat function (8 am to midnight).

The post Katie Hopkins: the viral power of an anti-Muslim falsehood on Twitter appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The company has taken welcome steps to counter electoral misinformation but falls short of other platforms in allowing users to flag and report false news stories.

Credit:Twitter.

The tweet was posted at 4:36 pm GMT on February 4, by the user @jjsmith1245, claimed that: “The ‘North London MUSLIM Housing Association‘ is building homes for, well, Muslims.  Supported by the Muslim Mayor of London, it looks like an entire little ghetto estate of brand new Muslim-only households is being created.”

Credit: North London Muslim Housing Association (NLMHA)

None of which is true, of course, as the North London Muslim Housing Association, welcomes applicants irrespective of background.

The Canadian far-right website Rebel Media made similar false claims about the North London Muslim Housing Association in July 2017, weeks earlier, the blog post cited by @jjsmith1245 first appeared online.

And the @jjsmith1245 account often shares far-right talking points on Twitter, including perverse anti-Muslim conspiracies such as the obscure concept of Taqiyya, which has also found mainstream credibility in the writings of the Times columnist and author Melanie Phillips.

It gained further traction when it was shared by the former Daily Express columnist and MEP Patrick O’Flynn, who tweeted that, “I’ve never got why ethnically and now religiously exclusive housing associations are permitted,” but was challenged in the replies, including from high-profile figures, including the journalist Fatima Manji and Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics at King’s College.

The erroneous tweet, from O’Flynn however, was not deleted as instead, a further tweet acknowledged the error, confirming that the housing association does indeed accept all applicants.

I'm told by @jdportes and others that such HAs in fact are signed up to accepting tenancy applications on an equal basis from all-comers. In which case only the names are exclusive (which I don't think is a great idea but that's a separate point). https://t.co/8uqg3N8wHg

— Patrick O'Flynn (@oflynnsocial) February 5, 2020

This clarification gained little traction when compared to O’Flynn’s original, erroneous tweet, which, as of writing, stands at over 230 retweets.

The original link shared by @jjsmith1245 and others directs users to a blog site called “England’s England” or “Christopher’s England”. For its obscurity, the website has published a plethora of articles steeped in conspiracist, racialised, and hateful content about Muslim and Jewish communities.

The blog cited by @jjsmith1245 first appeared online in June 2017, and, in that same month, another blog piece claimed that Muslim and Jewish communities control ‘most’ of the food chain in the UK, as both faith groups “brought with them the mentality of a return to the Stone Age”.

Years earlier, a blog post described how the notorious Holocaust denier and Nazi apologist David Irving had spent time in prison for “daring to speak freely and express himself and his views about the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust”. Other blog posts recycle the antisemitic canard about Jewish people and the media.

It claims that Islam is a “totalitarian political cult-like ideology” and speaks of “warring religion viruses, born of the inbred desert tribes of the Middle East thousands of years ago”.

One notable invective propagates ideas of resentment and victimhood politics, as it laments perceived examples of individual and social disadvantage, including, that it was legitimate, in their eyes, unfair of others to refer to him as a Brit as shorthand for British, but not to refer to someone of Pakistani background as a “P*ki”. As the previous Tell MAMA report highlighted: “A sense of victimhood underscores this intensification of emotion fuses with the power of myth-making to a broader cultural pessimism which is a feature of mainstream and more obscure far-right and radical right ideologies, and therefore, identifying the digital pathways which connect disparate far-right groups”.

In broader political terms, some academics have argued that a defining feature of the Trump campaign in 2016 was its reliance on ‘white victimised toxic masculinity’ – where segments of his supporters overlooked or disavowed their societal privileges by centring their belief of being ‘disrespected or violated by the political establishment,’ as proof of their apparent exclusion from politics.

The “Christopher England” page has its own Twitter account (@christopher_eng) where anti-Muslim and Islamophobic views are easy to find.

Nor is this the only recent example of old falsehoods gaining traction online.

Where appropriate, Tell MAMA has flagged tweets from the accounts of @christopher_eng and @jjsmith1245 for what it considers breaches of its hateful conduct policies.

The post How far-right fake news continues to go viral on Twitter appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Despite numerous debunkings in recent years, the story found a new life following a tweet from David Vance (@DVTAW), which boasts 145,000 followers, and benefits from a verified badge.

Credit: Twitter.

Vance linked to an obscure pro-Trump website which headlined their fake story, “Swedish child beaten by muslim immigrant for having blue eyes”.

This version of events, however, is as wilfully misleading as the previous iterations, hollowing out the facts of the Swedish-language news article, to further an anti-Muslim and Islamophobic agenda.

The @DVTAW tweet has gained just over 7,000 retweets, as journalists and others countering the falsehood, gaining prominence in the replies, as some responded with the discriminatory, hateful, and violent language such propaganda seeks to elicit.

Credit: Twitter.

Twitter reserves the right to remove the privilege of verified status to users who promote hatred against groups based on ethnicity, religious identity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. Such conduct also breaches the company’s broader hateful conduct policies.

The implementation of such a policy, however, for a variety of far-right personalities and groups is, at best, inconsistent.

The enduring appeal of such conspiracist thinking is attached more broadly to what academics contend is a form of ‘group polarisation’, often a banal daily occurrence can in extreme cases, morph into behavioural changes: from adopting maximalist thinking of their previous beliefs, practising self-segregation, developing a mistrust of others, or increasing their potential for violence.

Conspiracy theories endure because they “reduce highly complex phenomena to simple causes”, creating false hierarchies of knowledge, where information deemed ‘stigmatised’, by ‘untrustworthy’ mainstream institutions, finds validation elsewhere, according to Professor Michael Barkun.

Following a failed political career in 2010, gaining a mere 1,856 votes for the Traditional Unionist Voice, and having his blog A Tangled Web removed from Squarespace for repeated breaches of its hateful conduct policies that same year, Vance has gained a much bigger audience on social media, which includes indulging the grotesque anti-Muslim conspiracy of taqiyya, and ideologically-driven conspiracies about the slow ‘Islamisation’ of the UK, as other tweets routinely link Islam to violence and terrorism. This racialised lens is extended to Muslims, who are painted more broadly as antisemitic, violent, or as sexual predators.

Vance has used his Twitter account to promote anti-Soros conspiracies, invoking the language of ‘globalists’. The Anti-Defamation League does not consider the term to be intrinsically antisemitic but it will adopt such connotations when applied to Jewish people, groups of Jewish people, or areas where Jewish communities live. On April 29, 2017, Vance tweeted that the then French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was “an open borders globalist Soros stooge”. Soros, born to a Jewish family in Hungary in 1930, was 11-years-old when the pro-fascist government had begun deporting thousands of Jewish people to Nazi-occupied territories, and when the war ended, Soros was just 14. But it has not stopped years of rabid conspiracies about his alleged Nazi collaboration, none of which are true.

Other conspiracies placing Soros at the centre of political events and funding have become decidedly mainstream in recent years.

Nor is Vance’s blog site without its continued controversies, as a post by Peter Moore, uploaded on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2018, read: “Today is, of course, the day that many people tweet about something which happened long ago, far far away. “But we must remember”, they say. It’s pretty difficult to forget, since some people never stop banging on about the Holocaust, but lets remember”.

Other notable tweets from Vance include depoliticising the far-right, terroristic murder of Jo Cox MP, and pro-Assad and pro-Putin soundbites.

The popular transphobic slur “tranny” has appeared in multiple tweets from Vance.

He has posted flagrant falsehoods about the violent nature of the transatlantic slave trade, and the role of Britain, adding that “(UK) Africans should view this history with gratitude”, despite the vast financial sums, totalling £17 billion, given to slave owners in the UK as compensation.

On January 2, 2020, Vance liked a tweet in praise of a book he authored from a user with the logo of the neo-fascist British National Party, who boasted the username @destroylefties despite Vance tweeting years earlier of his disdain for the party.

Away from Twitter, Vance spent parts of last year speaking at the conference of the far-right For Britain Party and speaking alongside Katie Hopkins in Geneva, siding with the Modi government on Kashmir.

All the inflammatory and misleading content highlighted in this article remain on Twitter as of publication.

The post How a debunked anti-Muslim falsehood continues to endure appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Cllr John Moss, Conservative councillor for Larkswood ward in Waltham Forest, was named in a BuzzFeed News article concerning historic anti-Muslim and Islamophobic social media posts last month.

Cllr Moss has since apologised “unreservedly” for the comments and removed them from his Twitter account. He added that the comments “were not intended to be malicious, but they were careless.”

Credit: Facebook

The councillor has stated that he intends to meet with his local imam to apologise to him and to those who attend the mosque.

A Tell MAMA investigation, however, had unearthed several tweets which were then reported to the Director of Governance and Law at Waltham Forest Council on March 1, 2019.

Inflammatory tweets uncovered by Tell MAMA included the statements, “I’m sad to say Islam is damaging to women almost everywhere” and “Of course, the real abuse of animals because of outdated dogma is halal and kosher slaughter.”

Credit:Twitter/John_J_C_Moss.

He signed a Change.org petition in 2016 which called for UK-wide ban on halal slaughter, adding that halal and kosher slaughter should be “consigned to history”.

Credit:Twitter/John_J_C_Moss.

Cllr Moss replied to The Times columnist David Aaronovitch, on March 24, 2016, “Nothing to do with Islam either I suppose?” after Aaronvitch’s had tweeted “The Brussels terror attacks have nothing to do with Brexit. My @thetimes column this morning.”

Credit:Twitter/John_J_C_Moss.

It was after the terror attack in Brussels in March 2016 that Cllr Moss had tweeted: “In the name of a “god” which nobody can prove exists, by followers of a “prophet” that nobody can criticise = a death cult.”

Credit:Twitter/John_J_C_Moss.

A tweet from late 2014 read: “Just seen a fully Burka’d women driving a BMW playing George Michael at full volume #ironyalert.”

Waltham Forest Council responded to Tell MAMA’s complaint and concluded that “We are also of the view that the social media posts were not made by Cllr Moss in any official capacity but were private posts unconnected with is his official council role.”

The Twitter biography of Cllr Moss had read “Conservative Councillor & Affordable Housing Champion”. His official councillor biography on the Waltham Forest Council website linked to his @ John_J_C_Moss Twitter account. His biography has since been updated to read “On holiday”.

Cllr Alan Siggers, Conservative group leader for Waltham Forest, told the East London & West Sussex Guardian on May 30, that: “Myself, the deputy leader and chief whip interviewed John for his side of the story and we were satisfied that he does not have an Islamophobic bone in his body”.

Tell MAMA welcomes the decision to suspend Cllr Moss from the Conservative Party. We called for an inquiry into anti-Muslim prejudice and Islamophobia in the Conservative Party following the London Mayoral election campaign in 2016, a call we repeated last year.

Cllr Moss will also undergo diversity training and will donate his salary for the month to a charity of the imam’s choosing.

The post Conservative Cllr John Moss suspended over anti-Muslim Twitter conduct appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The Home Secretary was pressed by MPs to act urgently to force major internet firms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to do more to stamp out extreme content.

Conservative Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, also raised concerns over “vile extremism” spread over the internet which encourages people to join terror group Islamic State and others.

He added: “Will (Mr Javid) agree with me that the opportunity has really come to change the law here and to look at how we can charge people with treason?

“Will he look at the espionage bill that is coming before the House soon and seeing whether or not the Policy Exchange report that was written by me and (Labour MP Khalid Mahmood) could perhaps be used as an inspiration to some amendments to that law?”

Mr Javid replied: “It’s an important point.”

He noted the Government has received new powers to fight terrorism via the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, adding: “He also raised the issue of further potential powers, including powers around treason.

“These are issues that I’m taking very seriously, we are looking at this and I’d be happy to meet with him to discuss this further.”

Barry Sheerman, Labour MP for Huddersfield, earlier said he has not received half as much “vile stuff” compared to his female colleagues. He added: “I get threats, I’ve had people arrested for some of the things they’ve posted on my website.

“Could we have action now because it’s a culture we’ve got to change, people writing anonymously, horrible threats, disgusting stalking. Let’s put an end to it now.”

Mr Javid replied: “I very much share the sentiment of (Mr Sheerman).

“He’s pointed out there is some action the police and law enforcement could take today but it’s not enough, I don’t think there are enough rules and laws in place to tackle this, and that’s why we’re working across government to see what more needs to be done.”

Labour MP Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) also asked: “What penalties does the Home Secretary envisage imposing on the internet giants who have so far proved reluctant to help stamp out extreme content online?”

Mr Javid said Ms Sherriff and other MPs have suffered from “vile content” directed at them online, noting this was “absolutely unacceptable”.

He went on: “That’s why more needs to be done.

“We are working closely across government, especially my department with the culture department, on the online harms white paper.

“I don’t want to prejudge and announce now what’s in that paper but I can assure her that we’re taking this issue very, very seriously.”

The post Home Secretary Claims More Powers are Needed to Tackle Online Abuse and Extremism appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi provided screenshots of the historic retweets on February 6, 2019.

Tell MAMA’s investigation, however, of Cllr Mike Franklin’s Twitter account, has uncovered further examples of offensive retweets.

Our investigation found that Cllr Franklin, who represents Luton and Wayfield, retweeted a post shared on January 7, 2017, which sought to malign London Mayor Sadiq Khan as being ‘silent’ on terrorism. This is not true.

Credit: Twitter.

The account Cllr Franklin retweeted, @gimblemusk, has written that “If Islam is the answer, could the question be “What’s the most irritating, dull and violent religion on earth?”?”.

Cllr Franklin retweeted and favourited a tweet from a user (@RogerV52) who once wrote “Islam is incompatible with everyone. Where there are Muslims, there is conflict.”

The tweet in question, however, is an Islamophobic image macro which suggests that liberals are embracing Muslims, despite the apparent threat they pose to minorities and women. This image macro, however, is photoshopped, as the protester photographed, was at a 2006 protest which was, in part, organised by the extremist preacher Anjem Choudary, in response to the Danish cartoons.

Credit: Twitter.

But Cllr Franklin does not follow the @RogerV52 account. Nor was he tagged into the original tweet he then retweeted and favourited. Such actions pose more questions about his use of social media.

Similar conduct appeared on Cllr Franklin’s Twitter timeline in 2016, after he retweeted a post which sought to suggest that a small minority of Muslims in the UK and Germany endorse suicide bombing. The source of the polling is not the Pew Research Center, as the data concerns Muslims abroad, which, in actuality, showed a decline in support for suicide bombing.

Credit: Twitter.

The source of this data may stem from polling carried out by the Guardian/ICM in 2004 with sample sizes of just 500 Muslims (we’ve highlighted issues around polling methodologies before). And the Guardian piece, from November 2004, stated that the data was not weighted because “there is no authoritative source of demographic information on the Muslim population.”

Polling Muslims in Britain, after all, is a difficult and expensive task.

Others, like Professor Maria Sobolewska, writing in 2014, highlight how the framing of questions can influence responses. She also found a comparable number of non-Muslims expressed support for suicide bombings in certain contexts.

We’ve seen how bad polling (and the inaccurate interpretation of data) can malign Muslims in the press.

Similar concerns about the social media conduct of Cllr Franklin were raised in 2016, who, at the time, claimed that he was ‘naive’ in his use of Twitter. This new evidence serves to cast further doubt on this historic claim.

Tell MAMA will provide Medway Council and the Conservative Party with our evidence.

We welcome the swift action to suspend this councillor but it remains concerning that action, at a council level (or in the party hierarchy) was not seemingly taken when members of the public had raised complaints beforehand. We will, therefore, raise this concern further in our correspondence.

The post Conservative Cllr Mike Franklin suspended over Islamophobic retweets appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Goddard’s high-profile harassment of journalist Owen Jones, pro-EU activist Femi Oluwole, and the Conservative MP Anna Soubry has received wide condemnation from politicians across party lines, with the Prime Minister Theresa May condemning the “unacceptable and disgraceful treatment” of Soubry in a cabinet meeting.

Before the Facebook ban, however, Tell MAMA became aware of a post from an account of Mr Goddard, in a public Facebook group called “Jacob Rees-Mogg: Supporters’ Group”. The post, which first appeared on December 31, 2017, linked to a MailOnline article about the use of barriers in London for New Year’s Eve celebration. He wrote that this was “proof that as long as Islam exists in the west, then there will never be peace”, and called for a repatriation program to be institutionalised. He ended the Islamophobic post with the hashtags ‘#BanIslam’ and ‘#DefendEurope’.

The Facebook username, ‘Brexiter1989’, was used in a GAB account, which has remained accessible but inactive since late 2017. The profile biography reads: “I oppose Islam and everything that it stands for, as long as Islam exists in the West, there will never be peace.”

A post written a month earlier, in November 2017, echoes the Facebook comment but instead, calls for the Qur’an to be banned, adding: “We need to expel Islam from the West ASAP”. Again, Goddard used the ‘#DefendEurope’ hashtag, along with the hashtag ‘#repatriationistheonlysolution’.

A post which read: “P*ki traitors of any stripe, along with your treasonous officials who enable the ethnic cleansing of the native British people” was reposted to Goddard’s GAB profile, to which, he replied: “All illegals need deporting ASAP. It’s about time the indigenous people of Great Britain, were put first.”

Following the murder of an elderly man and the attempted murder of sixteen other pedestrians in Melbourne, Australia, James Goddard attempted to link the attack to Islam, adding that ‘mass repatriation was the only solution’ and ‘Why does our political class, continue to import barbaric, 3rd world savages?’. Saeed Noori, an Australian citizen, who was born in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty in December 2018 but was not charged with any terrorism offences.

In December 2017, Goddard wrote to Jayda Fransen, the then deputy leader of the far-right group Britain First on GAB, “Although I don’t agree with the way you go about things, I have to say you’re effective and brutally honest. As you were, OCS”. The initialism ‘OCS’ is a reference to ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, rhetoric appropriated by Britain First. Goddard had reposted a comment from the leader of Britain First, Paul Golding when he first joined GAB.

Goddard also wrote that: “Multiculturalism has destroyed Western Europe, unless we start a mass repatriation program, we’ll all be living under the barbaric Sharia Law.” This post gained fourteen positive upvotes and two reposts on GAB.

He called for the East London Mosque to be shut down ‘along with every other Mosque, that currently besmirches our great country.’

His Christmas wishlist for 2017, included the banning of Islam in the West, and the imprisonment of Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the ‘other globalists’, a rhetorical sleight of hand which some have argued is an antisemitic dog whistle.

Credit: GAB.

The Twitter account of James Goddard, which remains active as of writing, again used the term globalist on December 31, 2018.

As with others, the far-right conspiracy-logic of so-called Islamic appeasement by governments in the UK and abroad permeates through much of his social media content. This mistrust of institutions and the pursuit of alternative truths reflects what Michael Barkun argues in a Culture of Conspiracy, is a form of ‘stigmatised’ knowledge. This form of knowledge, Barkun argues, seeks to validate alternative forms of ‘truth’ outside of mainstream institutions, which are considered corrupt or untrustworthy. He has referred to Theresa May as a ‘nasty Islamic appeasing Dhimmi’, which borrows from the conspiracy-logic of ‘Eurabia’.

Goddard spoke at a ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally earlier this year.

Jason Farrell, the Home editor for Sky News, described meeting Goddard at a Democratic Football Lads Alliance march.

A racist post on GAB concerned the author and journalist Afua Hirsch, where Goddard wrote, “If you don’t like it, then kindly find the nearest exit and F**K Off, back to Bongo Land”.

He’s also expressed a desire to see the ‘transgenders’, Dianne Abbott, ‘Sadick Khan’, and the Muslim populations of Great Britain and the United States deported to Afghanistan. All groups and individuals he labelled as ‘parasites’.

Other conspiracy theories, of a white nationalist persuasion, have appeared on the personal Twitter account of James Goddard. On August 28, 2018, he tweeted: “Coming from a rat like yourself. Oh please. I speak the truth, like I’ve said many times, we must address the issues in our country. Terrorism, grooming gangs and cultural Marxism. We must tackle these to preserve our country!”.

Credit: Twitter/@JGoddard230616

The conspiracy of ‘cultural Marxism’ was coined “by American thinkers, most of them white nationalists, to explain the rise of political correctness and anti-racist beliefs as well as the advent of multiculturalism”. Others have pointed to the antisemitic underpinnings of the theory. This theory appeared was woven into the manifesto of the far-right terrorist Anders Breivik. It was a stalwart of the politics of the neo-fascist British National Party.

Questions now remain if Twitter will follow Facebook in removing Goddard from their platform.

Speaker Jon Bercow has called for a change in policing policy, following the harassment of parliamentarians, in what he described as a “form of fascism”.

The post James Goddard: Far-right protester called for Islam to be banned and for ‘mass repatriation’ appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The important paragraphs are below:

“Our initial proposal for implementing this, which we were slated to present to staff at the end of the month, focuses on addressing dehumanizing speech – that is, speech that treats or describes others as less than human. We’re focusing on this first for a few reasons, including: academic research has consistently linked dehumanization with violence, (Boris beware after your recent comments about Niqab wearing women being ‘letterboxes’.

“In the history of mass violence, dehumanization consistently precedes acts of violence; dehumanizing hate speech affects not only the direct targets of the speech, but also the wider society that witnesses the speech”.

This may prove to be a significant development but we will watch closely to see if Twitter does indeed make efforts to clamp-down on dehumanising language – be it against individuals or minority groups more broadly.

The post Twitter Seeks to Address ‘Dehumanizing Speech’ appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Director of Tell MAMA, Iman Atta OBE says, “we are in deeply worrying times where people are looking for certainty and what they are getting is instability at a political and societal level. This means that at times like this, minority groups are the ones who suffer the anger of those looking to vent their fears, insecurities and concerns.

“We are seeing more aggressive street-based incidents, younger perpetrators, between the ages of 13-18, increased vandalism and international interference by well organised social media accounts playing groups off in the UK. More than ever, we need to come together and redouble our efforts against those who seek to divide and play communities off against each other”.

Key Points

• In 2017 Tell MAMA recorded a total of 1,330 reports. Of these reports, 1,201 were verified as being anti-Muslim or Islamophobic in nature and as having occurred in the UK between January and December 2017. More than two-thirds of verified incidents occurred offline, or on a street-level (70%, n=839), which represents a 30% rise in offline reports when compared to the previous reporting period (n=643). An offline, or street-level, incident means that the incident occurred in-person between a victim (or property) and a perpetrator. There were therefore more street incidents of anti-Muslim hatred reported into Tell MAMA.
• Crimes or incidents that are classified as ‘online’ occurred on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, or on other Internet-based platforms, were verified as having happened within the UK, and account for a third of reports in 2017 (n=362), which represents a 16.3% rise in reports when compared to the previous year (n=311). This small rise can be partially attributed to the way in which ideologically-motivated accounts felt emboldened by major trigger events, (such as terrorist attacks) and broader Islamophobic discourses in the public sphere.
• The ‘online hate’ figure, however, should be viewed as part of a wider trend in our datasets where there has been a marked shift towards more serious offline incidents such as physical attacks, threatening behaviour and abuse more generally, along with a growing awareness of Tell MAMA in Muslim communities, among key stakeholders, and partners, resulting in a greater willingness amongst victims and witnesses to report.
• Tell MAMA has listed in its annual report examples of ‘Twitter bots’ that have sought to cause disruption and division in community perceptions and which have actively promoted anti-Muslim hatred. One such Twitter account was @DavidJo52951945 . Responses to the rhetoric on this account, called for violent action against Islamic institutions and on August 30^th 2017, the Times reported that this bot originated from Russia. Furthermore, a Twitter account called @SouthLoneStar, which had amassed some 16,500 followers, was responsible in starting a global trend after the Westminster terrorist attack.

The @SouthLoneStar account made several tweets about the terror attack on Westminster Bridge before sharing the photo of a Muslim woman walking across the bridge on a mobile phone, just after the vehicle had mown down pedestrians. It used the major hashtags (#PrayForLondon and #Westminster) to post tweets which described Islam as a ‘cult of death’ and added the #BanIslam hashtag. An earlier tweet called for Islam to be ‘outlawed’.^[1] An archive of the @SouthLoneStar account in January 2017 revealed many pro-Trump tweets and how the account had followed a far-right account named @pepethetroll, which remains active on the platform.^[2] Nor was the anti-Muslim content specific to the United States or even Britain. Further archive research of the account reveals that the @SouthLoneStar had attempted to stir-up anti-Muslim views in other European countries. For example, on 11 March 2017, @SouthLoneStar used the ‘#BanIslam’ and ‘#Rotterdam’ hashtags in a tweet which shared an image of about Muslim conquests and the Crusades.^[3]

The Guardian reported that the @SouthLoneStar account was the “creation of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian “troll army” based in St Petersburg. This is where, in rooms of about 20 people working 12-hour shifts for pay of between 45,000 and 65,000 rubles a month (£575-£830), a modern disinformation campaign is crafted.” Whilst these are some examples of Twitter and social media accounts promoting direct anti-Muslim hatred, we need to maintain vigilance against foreign interference, in these cases, emanating from Russia, which seek to promote division and intolerance in the UK.

• Social media agencies such as Twitter conduct a haphazard removal process for content. Our report highlights inaction from Twitter even on material that glorifies anti-Muslim hatred and violence against Muslims and Islamic institutions. Furthermore, Twitter’s inactivity in removing anti-Muslim hate material is deeply worrying and shows a wanton lack of desire to understand this hatred on its platform. Twitter has also demonstrated to us in Tell MAMA, its inability to stop individuals opening up new accounts repeatedly, when they have been banned from using the platform. In one case, a victim had to report in eleven separate accounts for harassment and with Twitter unable to stop the creation of new accounts and even dismissing reports on the same individual when multiple accounts linked to him were reported in through the ‘reporting in’ channels for Twitter.
• In 2017, vandalism replaced threatening behaviour as the third most common anti-Muslim hate incident. There was a 56% increase in anti-Muslim vandalism when compared with 2016, with one in ten ‘real-world’ incidents being classed as vandalism. (The most widely reported anti-Muslim hate incident was classified as ‘abusive behaviour’ with the second most reported frequency of incident classed as a ‘physical attack’. This demonstrated a rise in physical intimidation and actions against Muslim faith institutions and property.) Discrimination was the fourth most common anti-Muslim incident reported to Tell MAMA in 2017, with a 77% increase in incidents when compared to 2016. This category included mistreatment, denial of opportunities or denial of services based on Islamophobic prejudice, some of which was institutional in nature.
• Places of Anti-Muslim Hate Incidents: Consistent with previous years, the largest proportion of street-based incidents took place within public areas such as parks and shopping areas and the second most common place for incidents was public transport networks, such as trams, buses etc.
• Gender Variances in Attacks: 2017 data showed that at a street level nearly 6 out of 10 victims of anti-Muslim hate were women and 8 in 10 of the perpetrators were male, re-affirming previous findings over the years, that anti-Muslim hate or Islamophobia at a street level is also male on female abuse in addition to anti-Muslim hatred and bigotry. 
• Victim Ethnicity – Predominantly Asian females

10). Perpetrator Ethnicity – Predominantly white males

11). Victim and Perpetrator Age Ranges

Where age group data was available, the most common age for victims was 26-35.

The most common age for perpetrators was 13-18.

References

^[1] Ibid.

^[2] Texas Lone Star. Twitter post. 2016. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20170112123756/https://twitter.com/SouthLoneStar/ (retrieved 18/06/2018).

^[3] Texas Lone Star. Twitter post. March 11 2017, 20:01. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20170112123756/https://twitter.com/SouthLoneStar/ (retrieved 18/06/2018).

The post Tell MAMA’s Annual Report for 2017 Shows Highest Number of Anti-Muslim Incidents appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Mark Rowley, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer, also criticised major communication service providers for failing to take action against extremists, saying they had failed to make a single direct referral to British police about terrorist activity on their sites.

“Online extremists seem to able to act with impunity, occupying spaces owned and managed by legitimate and very wealthy corporations,” Rowley told a security conference in London.

“They are effectively private tenants to their communication service provider landlords. In the real world, if a landlord knew their property was being used to plan or inspire terrorist attacks, you would expect them to show responsibility by informing the authorities.”

The British authorities have long accused tech firms of failing to do enough to tackle the problem of extremism on the internet, saying they had too often turned a blind eye to the actions of those using their services.

The country’s security minister has warned Britain might impose taxes on giants like Google and Facebook unless they did more to combat online extremism and interior minister Amber Rudd travelled to Silicon Valley last year to call for action after four deadly attacks in 2017 which killed 36 people.

“… as a police service we have yet to receive a direct referral from them when they have identified such (terrorist) behaviour,” Rowley said. 

He said it was not right that a person could be radicalised online by viewing illegal content, could communicate with an extremist using encrypted communications, could research potential targets and download bomb-making material. 

He said future tools and technology should be designed “with corporate social responsibility in mind” so they could not be exploited by terrorists.

Whilst he said the financial sector had taken steps to address terrorism funding, social media firms had not done enough.

“Despite major progress in recent months, I am not as reassured by the level of proactivity and commitment of communication service providers about tackling the terrorist threat,” he said. 

Julian King, the European Union’s security commissioner, also told the conference that unless rapid progress were made on taking down extremist material, there was a “real risk of fragmentation” leading to 28 different forms of legislation being passed across the bloc.

The post Social media firms are like irresponsible landlords – UK counter-terrorism police head appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The tweet, posted at 18:12 GMT read: “Another ‘gas explosion’. Pin marks explosion. Looks like a lovely area.” She added the hashtag ‘#gasmyass’ and juxtaposed an image of news reports against a Google Maps search for nearby mosques.

Hopkins then tweeted: “We don’t know what the f*ck just happened, but we can say with absolute authority it is Definitely Not Terror Related #BritainFalls,” at 18:22 GMT.

Hours earlier, at 14:35 GMT, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the nature of the explosion was gas related, a fact some on Twitter pointed out to Ms Hopkins. This was then tweeted by the main Metropolitan Police account an hour later. Hours before Hopkins made her inflammatory tweets.

Incident in Harold Hill is stood down. The cause of the explosion has been confirmed as gas related. https://t.co/2SfrApD1J3 pic.twitter.com/ZSJ9ITcGR2

— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) March 4, 2018

One user took a screenshot of all the local churches in the area on Google Maps, adding “You’re just being silly now.”

Others went on to accuse Hopkins of spreading hatred, with some pointing that the nearest mosque was still miles away, a Google search confirms that one mosque is over four miles away.

Hopkins was condemned last week after tweeting then deleting a tweet which linked a gas explosion to Leicester to terrorism.

As of writing, Hopkins has not removed the offending tweet about the gas explosion in Harold Hill, as the nature of the tweet has also attracted some hateful comments which mention ‘towel heads’ and one tweet making a joke about explosives.

Tell MAMA has reported the tweets to Twitter, the platform has also streamlined how users can report abusive content on the platform.

Katie Hopkins still retains her verification badge despite Twitter’s clampdown last November.

You can report abusive content you find online through our free iOS or Android apps. Or through our online form. Or contact us via WhatsApp on 0734 184 6086 or call our confidential phone line for free on 0800 456 1226.

The post Katie Hopkins condemned for linking gas explosion to Muslims appeared first on TELL MAMA.

“This was a terrorist attack. You intended to kill.

“Mr Ali’s family said they could not imagine the trauma he felt as he died.”

The Judge also said that Osborne had “planned a suicide mission” and that he believed that he would have been shot and killed in his attempts to kill as many Muslims as possible in a terrorist attack. The Judge went onto add that:

“(Osborne) had been rapidly radicalised over the internet by those determined to spread hatred of Muslims”. 

This though is telling. Justice Grubb said:

“Your use of Twitter exposed you to racists and anti-Islamic ideology,” she added.

“In short, you allowed your mind to be poisoned by those who claimed to be leaders.”

In short, if Twitter thinks it is business as usual after this case, it better think again. Tommy Robinson’s account need shutting and if not, Twitter will have crossed a line from no return and opened itself up to potential legal claims.

The post No Twitter – After the Darren Osborne Terrorist Attack, It is not business as usual appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Tweets from our account last night were unbecoming of the standards we set for ourselves as an organisation dedicated to challenging this form of bigotry. The wording was unacceptable and we acknowledge how this has caused many a great deal of upset and in subsequent tweets. For that, we apologise profusely.

Muslims of all ages are at risk of discrimination in educational institutions, in the workplace, and near their homes when accessing public and private services. This goes beyond being passed over for roles, and often consists of ongoing ‘low-level’ abuse and mistreatment met with ignorance from those in authoritative and managerial roles when these issues are highlighted. In one report to our service, a woman was labelled a ‘troublemaker’ by management because she raised the racist bullying she had faced from a male colleague. We do support individuals on discrimination issues, be it in schools or the workplace, and in our 2016 annual report, we had 46 cases or 7 percent of verified reports we classified as discriminatory in nature.

Anti-Muslim hatred has the effect of limiting the geographic mobility of victims, meaning that they are frequently less willing to travel around particular areas they consider risky or become anxious about leaving their own neighbourhood for fear of victimisation. This would appear to intersect with factors such as Islamic visibility (i.e. the wearing Islamic clothing), meaning that often it is women whose geographic mobility is restricted. The impact of ongoing ‘low-level’ harassment and discrimination can have a serious impact on mental wellbeing as they are often less able to escape victimisation in their own neighbourhood, at school or in the workplace.

The impact of anti-Muslim incidents, whether violent or otherwise, can be very significant to victims. Police responding to reports of anti-Muslim incidents, and indeed any hate incident, need to consider the deeper mental and emotional impacts aggravated offences have on victims and further training in these areas may be required by forces.

There is evidence within our dataset to show how a casual reference to terrorism directed at Muslims can, on occasion, escalate to more serious, false and sometimes malicious accusations of extremism, which could have potentially serious repercussions for the individuals they are directed at. While there have been many cases in which young people needed safeguarding from extremist views, we have received numerous accounts of Muslim individuals being disingenuously reported as ‘suspected terrorists’ as a form of Islamophobic abuse.

The problem of anti-Muslim hatred and racism is not going away, but we have always prided ourselves on standing in solidarity with other minorities to ensure that all forms of racism, bigotry, and discrimination are challenged, and the individuals who experience it get the necessary support, be it emotional or through the mechanisms of the criminal justice service. Empowering minority communities, not demonising them is what we must always aspire towards and we fell short of that. We encourage dialogue and while we may disagree with some, this fight against racism and hatred requires mutuality, tolerance and respect.

The poorly worded tweets will now be reviewed internally as they were not appropriate or in line with the values of our work, and action will be taken to avoid such statements in the future.

The post A statement on our work and social media appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Fransen captioned the videos “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!”, “VIDEO: Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” and “VIDEO: Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”

Within minutes, the accounts of leader Paul Golding, Britain First, and Jayda Fransen synchronised their tweets to read “THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DONALD TRUMP, HAS RETWEETED THREE OF DEPUTY LEADER JAYDA FRANSEN’S TWITTER VIDEOS! DONALD TRUMP HIMSELF HAS RETWEETED THESE VIDEOS AND HAS AROUND 44 MILLION FOLLOWERS! GOD BLESS YOU TRUMP! GOD BLESS AMERICA! OCS @JaydaBF @realDonaldTrump.”

Fransen is on bail in relation to the distribution of leaflets and the posting of online videos during a trial held at Canterbury Crown Court in May. Fransen breached her bail conditions by going on a far-right tour of Europe and was arrested during a protest in Sunderland on October 14.

The Home Office has, on two occasions, stopped the antisemitic and anti-Muslim Polish priest Jacek Międlar, from speaking at Britain First rallies.

A day earlier and Fransen appeared on the neo-Nazi Radio Aryan show with Dave Russell.

She will also appear in court in Northern Ireland next month charged with using threatening and abusive language in connection with a speech she made at a demonstration in Belfast on August 6.

Fransen was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment in November 2016 after abusing a Muslim woman in Luton during a self-styled ‘Christian Patrol’ in January 2016.

Britain First also took members on an ‘activist training camp’ in the Welsh mountains in June 2016. Members were said to have learned self-defence, martial arts, knife defence, and basic survival skills.

The party, which has never shied away from its ‘street defence’ credentials, held an ‘Activist Academy’ where activists “learnt various self defence combat sports, including boxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu and Krav Maga,” in April 2014.

Tell MAMA strongly condemns the actions of Donald Trump as the politics of Britain First has no place in our society, given their extremist views towards Muslims, the Romani and other communities, where they seek to sow division over dialogue, which promotes a vision of this country that is at odds with any sense of common decency, pluralism or religious and cultural tolerance.

Today is a sad demonstration of how far extremism has moved further into the mainstream.

The post Donald Trump retweeted Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), will seek sterner punishments for offences committed on major social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.

Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, writing for the Guardian, said: “we must remember the common thread that links online purveyors of hate with those who commit physical hate crimes.”

Acknowledging that social media abuse, will, and cannot be prosecuted in the same manner as physical violence, the CPS recognises the deep harm online hate creates.

In 2015, Tell MAMA commissioned academics to look at the experiences of online and street-based anti-Muslim hate, bigotry, and racism. It found individuals fearful that the online abuse would have real-world consequences. Others changed their identity in public. In one example, one Muslim woman would wear a hat to disguise their hijab.

The CPS continues to have strong free speech protections, urging caution on charging individuals under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.

The new guidance will give witnesses and victims a better sense of the law.

Cases should carry the same “robust and proactive approach” to street-based crime.

There are some exceptions, however, including cases involving children who may not understand the severity or potential harm caused.

This revised approach will continue to look at ways to identify the ‘agitators’ and ‘disseminators’ of online abuse. For example, to encourage others to tweet or retweet ‘grossly offensive’ messages may fall foul of the Serious Crime Act 2007.

Other examples include the creation of hashtags that may encourage a campaign of harassment.

Hate crime relates to the perception of victims or other individuals when the motivation for criminal offences has demonstrable hostility towards a person’s ‘protected characteristics’ or assumed identity – disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

Online abuse can result in custodial sentences. Timothy Burton, 64, was jailed for 12 weeks in April, after sending anti-Muslim tweets and emails to Tell MAMA’s founder Fiyaz Mughal OBE.

In 2015/16, the CPS completed 15,442 hate crime prosecutions, its highest-ever total. In that same year, the conviction rate for hate crimes grew slightly to 83.2 per cent. The CPS has also seen an uptake in hate crime sentence uplifts.

Join the conversation with the hashtags ‘#Hatecrimematters’ and ‘#No2h8’.

Members of the public can report anti-Muslim abuse they’ve seen or experienced in confidence via our online form or contact us through Facebook or Twitter.

Hate crime can be reported through 999 in an emergency, by dialling 101 in a non-emergency, directly at a police station, or using True Vision online.

The post How the CPS intends to crack down on online hate crime appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Furthermore, there have been no real curbs on the use of personal data by such companies who have then further sold on the material or used it to target customers in a manner where there have been few checks and balances. This is why Theresa May’s statements, highlighted in the Times, are extremely welcome. She stated:

“We want the UK to be…..the best place for a digital business to be set up and to grow but also the safest and most secure place for people to be online.”

The article also highlights the monopoly that companies have had, and in May’s statement, read Google and You Tube. We believe that Google’s dominance in the market place and sheer disregard for the rights of individuals to have data removed which may be illegal and targeted at them, shows that more pressure  has to be put onto this company. We simply cannot have organisations like this dominating the market, using data how they see fit and then disregarding the rights of individual men, women and children in our country.

We support the stance of Theresa May in ensuring stricter and stronger curbs are put on internet giants in the next Parliamentary cycle. This is essential to act as a check and balance against corporations who are running roughshod over the rights of individuals.

The post Theresa May’s Crackdown on Social Media Companies Welcome appeared first on TELL MAMA.

It is clear that social media PR bosses completely misjudged the mood of Parliamentarians which had changed over the last year. For over a year, it became clear to us that Parliamentarians were receiving more and more complaints from their electorate about issues with social media. Any public relations professional would have picked up the changing mood in Parliament and particularly on the Home Affairs Select Committee. There was therefore a fundamental failure by these PR bosses of social media companies to assess what was coming their way.

Tell MAMA supports the detailed and pro-active report produced by the HASC committee. The committee has stood up for the rights of individuals and victims and the points made in the report are a serious wake up call for these social media companies which make enormous profits. Furthermore, the HASC committee also took on board our suggestions around financial penalties for social media companies, if there are policing costs because of their inability to act on criminal material. We have always stated that there is a huge financial and social cost because of these platforms and Google, You Tube, Twitter and Facebook have provided no actual funding for policing and civil society costs for their work recording and countering issues such as LGBT hate, anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred. Whilst making huge profits, they have systematically neglected the unnecessary costs to the public purse that their platforms have racked up in the UK. That could not carry on and Tell MAMA has systematically made this case for over 2 years. This point has now been accepted and promoted by the Home Affairs Select Committee.

We thank the members of the HASC for their excellent work and we will continue to stand up for the rights of victims of hate crimes. 

The post Social Media Companies Misjudged the Mood of the Home Affairs Select Committee appeared first on TELL MAMA.

This loose network of accounts was created in late 2016 or in early 2017. Most claim affiliation to the English Defence League (EDL). Their Twitter biographies make bold claims, expressing deep hatreds of Muslims and migrants. Some hint at problems in their personal lives. Yet, our first clue about the true nature of the accounts concerns how their biographies are written. Take these four examples:

Born in ’63. Chelsea, EDL and proud. Likes: the pub, kids, beer, sex, football. Hates: Islam, Women (especially EX wife), forners and minorities in general. (@CFC_EDL)

53 divorced . Voted OUT. Not fond of Islam and foreners as they are destroying my country. Not racist just don’t like em simple as (@BoozerLee_EDL)

Born in 59, expat, hate foreners, Millwall fan, EDL, down the pub. Hate pakis, disabled, blacks, gays and refugees. Trying to get my kids… (@EDLLoyal)

Divorced. Have 1 son. Age 62. EDL & BNP. Ex National front. CEO of scaffolding. Love England, Pub & the darts. Refugees and Foreners not welcome in the U.K. (@Stevie_EDL)

The bolded parts of each biography are the most revealing. Note how the accounts almost always misspell the word foreigner. This is not an accident. In three of the four examples, the accounts misspell the word foreigner as ‘forener’ and once as ‘forner’. A second clue concerns how all the accounts allude to an alleged age or year of birth. Their supposed hatreds (be it women or Muslims) stand in contrast to their love of pubs.

Twitter did act to suspend Alan ‘Big Cock’ Lee’s (@FUCKOFFORNERS) account. Note how this Twitter handle also deliberately misspells ‘foreigners’. The photos attributed to this account are of Andrew Royston – an infamous figure in far-right networks. Nor is it likely that Mr Royston ran the account under the pseudonym as several tweets referred to his alleged sexual inadequacies. It’s also unlikely that such an account would make overt admissions of guilt over criminal matters.

Yet, in this pursuit of ‘authenticity’ come scabrous, harmful and ultimately hateful messages. For example, the @Steve_EDL account tweeted on February 27, ‘Just twatted a Pakistani mans skull for saying john terry is racist’ at 3:05 am. Just five minutes earlier, the @CFC_EDL account tweeted, “Just punched a muslim on way back from pub.” Now, it’s not impossible, but implausible that both incidents occurred in such proximity. Unless the individuals committed the offences while together, but there’s little evidence to suggest that.

Self-deprecating comments, however, are easier to detect. In one example, the @Stevie_EDL account tweets their interest in incest. Together, these ill-conceived far-right caricatures grow.

A useful way to measure the volume of fake EDL accounts is to check who @Stevie_EDL and @CFC_EDL follow on Twitter.

Quite often, the above individuals are involved in far-right movements. Others are not.

An egregious example of the latter concerns the now suspended @BigPaulLovesPub account. The photos and information provided in the account are fictitious. A reverse image search confirms that the photos posted on the @BigPaulLovesPub account are stolen from a Flickr album that were uploaded in 2010 from a user in the United States.

Of the many offensive fictions, one stolen photo is captioned: “Ready to go pub hope I see some of you lads there ina while, Know the owner well he knows to keep n***ers and muzzies out so theres no blood”.

The character of Paul is painted as a violent misogynist who admits to assaulting his wife. An entire narrative which spans several tweets continues this fiction, where the imagined wife has taken control of the account in apparent ‘revenge’. Other tweets visible before its removal show @BigPaulLovesPub interacting with other fake EDL accounts.

On Facebook, the page ‘Robust & Reposted Memes’ shared a screenshot of a @BigPaulLovesPub tweet on February 11 – perhaps unaware of its true intent.

The accounts may have also committed criminal offences. As revised guidelines from Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stipulate: “the act of setting up a false social networking account or website, or the creation of a false or offensive profile or alias could amount to a criminal offence, depending on the circumstances.”

A communication defined as either ‘grossly offensive, indecent, obscene’ may fall under a Section 4 offence if the intended communication is ‘false’. It may also amount to an offence under the Public Order Act 1986.

To be offensive, however, may not mean a criminal offence has taken place. The CPS makes clear that context and public interest factors must be taken into consideration first.

Twitter stipulates that impersonation is a violation of their guidelines.

The nature of these fake accounts only serves to undermine the very real problem of far-right extremism online. Verified Tell MAMA data for 2015 revealed how 45 per cent of perpetrators of online incidents proved supportive of the far-right.

The post How fake far-right accounts spread hate on Twitter appeared first on TELL MAMA.

However, we wanted to raise this case to send out a clear message that anti-Shia hatred is not only unacceptable, it needs to be challenged and called out. For far too long, these issues have been left and people have decided not to challenge them.

The comments by the Twitter user @ZaynHasani even shows him pinning anti-Shia comments to his Twitter account. Assuming the picture he has posted is Mr Hasani, how could such a young man be influenced by such comments of hatred against members of the Shia Muslim communities. His hatred against women also comes through in one of the tweets below and we are concerned by this rhetoric and the extremely polarised views that this person is showing.

If you come across anti-Shia comments that are emanating from the United Kingdom, please do report them into us at Tell MAMA, info@tellmamauk.org. This also goes for anti-Sunni and anti-Ahmaddiya comments.

The post Anti-Shia Hatred Like This is Anti-Muslim Hatred & Cannot be Accepted appeared first on TELL MAMA.

George Ciccariello-Maher, a white assistant professor of history and politics at the Philadelphia university, posted “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide” on Twitter on Christmas Eve, according to media reports.

He followed up on Sunday by tweeting, “To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian revolution, that was a good thing indeed.”

Condemnation lit up Twitter after the comments from Ciccariello-Maher, an expert on Latin American social movements, were picked up by such conservative news sites as Breitbart News and The Daily Caller.

“What rock did this cretin crawl out from under?” Sean O’Reilly tweeted. Twitter user Camz wrote, “You want a white genocide, why not be the one who starts it and see where you end up. You coward.”

Drexel University, a private school with about 26,000 students, said in a statement on Sunday that it had contacted Ciccariello-Maher to schedule a meeting about the tweets.

Drexel said that although it recognised the right of faculty members to express their views, the comments were “utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing, and do not in any way reflect the values of the University.”

Ciccariello-Maher said in an email on Monday that the tweets were only aimed at poking fun at white supremacists and that he and Drexel had become targets of a smear campaign.

He said that the concept of “white genocide” was used by white nationalists to denounce everything from interracial relationships to policies aimed at promoting multiple cultures.

“It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I’m glad to have mocked it,” Ciccariello-Maher wrote. Access to his Twitter account had been restricted on Monday.

He has drawn online support, with a Change.org petition backing him generating almost 3,000 signatures by Monday.

“Let Drexel know – in the midst of the deafening, organised troll-storm – that racist trolls deserve no platform in dictating academic discourse, let alone the off-duty tweets of academics,” the petition said.

The post Pennsylvania professor under fire for ‘white genocide’ tweet appeared first on TELL MAMA.

More than 300 Twitter employees will be affected by the layoffs as part of a broader restructuring, a figure similar to an earlier round of reductions announced a year ago. Separately, the company announced it would discontinue Vine, a video app launched in 2013 that played brief clips on a repeat loop that struggled to compete with Facebook’s Instagram.

The reductions of staff and services were blunted somewhat by the backdrop of third-quarter revenue growth that slowed sharply but topped analysts’ expectations. Its stock was up 1.6 percent to $17.56, after rallying 5 percent in premarket trading.

Revenue rose about 8 percent to $616 million, above the average analyst estimate of $605.8 million. The company had reported a 20-percent rise in revenue in the previous quarter and 58 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Twitter, which has seen user growth stall amid competition from nimbler rivals such as Instagram and Snapchat, said its user base ticked up 3 percent to 317 million average monthly active users in the quarter.

Analysts, on average, had expected 316.3 million monthly active users, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

“The building blocks for revenue are increasing the number of users, and Twitter is not doing a particularly good job of that,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said. He added that Twitter needed to grow revenue by $200 million to $300 million a quarter to achieve 2017 profitability.

“The run-rate for the year is under $100 million in profit, so it is really hard to justify spending $15 or $18 billion to buy a $100-million profit (company),” Pachter said.

Total advertising revenue of $545 million grew 6 percent year-over-year, and 90 percent of it came from mobile.

Excluding items, the company earned 13 cents per share, beating the average estimate of 9 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company is “more disciplined about how we invest in the business” and intends to be profitable in 2017, said Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto.

Among its priorities, Twitter is dedicated to growing its burgeoning live video offerings through partnerships with organizations such as the National Football League, Noto said. Advertisers are increasingly interested in live video because of its potential to reach new and younger audiences, he added.

Twitter hired bankers last month to field acquisition offers, but it has seen a dearth of potential bidders. Salesforce.com Inc, the last of a small cohort of companies including Walt Disney Co and Alphabet Inc believed to have been interested, said recently it would not pursue a deal.

The apparent lack of interest forced the social media company to consider a route anathema to aspiring tech startups: a major restructuring.

MORE LAYOFFS

Twitter had 3,860 employees globally as of June. The reduction of more than 300, chiefly in its sales, partnerships, and marketing efforts.

The cuts come about a year after a similar wave of layoffs of up to 336 employees were announced when Jack Dorsey, its co-founder who had been serving as interim chief executive, took over as permanent CEO. Since then, Dorsey has drawn criticism from some analysts for splitting his time between Twitter and Square.

The company said it expected cash expenditures of about $10 million to $20 million in the fourth quarter, mostly for severance costs.

On an investor call Thursday, Dorsey said he would not comment on speculation about a potential sale. He said in a statement that the company has “a clear plan, and we’re making the necessary changes to ensure Twitter is positioned for long-term growth.”

Asked by investors whether major events such as presidential debates or the Olympics affected Twitter’s quarterly growth in metrics, Noto said there needed to be such an event “every day” on the platform to meaningfully improve numbers, and “that’s where we’re headed.”

The popular but money-losing microblogging service spent aggressively on product development and marketing in recent years, betting it could afford losses as long as it attracted new users. But that growth stalled this year after it exceeded 300 million active monthly users, less than a fifth of Facebook Inc’s users and below Facebook’s Instagram.

The company’s net loss narrowed to $102.9 million, or 15 cents per share, in the third quarter, from $131.7 million, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier.

Twitter also said it would roll out “meaningful updates” next month affecting how it protects users from abusive content, an issue for which the company has endured growing criticism.

The post Twitter cuts jobs with eye on 2017 profit; Vine discontinued appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The famous footballing veteran put out the following tweet about the treatment of young refugees and showed compassion and care towards these stateless young people fleeing from persecution.

You would think that trolling the nation’s favourite footballing celebrity would be a particularly silly thing to do, but in jumped Tommy ‘reformed’ Robinson with a tweet against Lineker who has 5.32 million Twitter followers.

The result was a one-liner that absolutely put the Robinson on the back foot causing him to send out abusive messages to Lineker.

Having lost the argument, Robinson deferred back to what he knows, insulting people. However, on this occasion, what was clear to see was that he picked on the wrong person. The nation stands behind Lineker, whilst some of those behind Robinson involve a hotchpotch of anti-Muslim bigots, racists and haters. Just to add to it all, Robinson was blocked!

The treatment by some towards these young refugees is hideously racist and utterly heartless. What's happening to our country?

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) October 18, 2016

@TRobinsonNewEra racist idiot

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) October 18, 2016

Didn't take long. Throws out accusations then cannot back them up. Typical celebrity moron living on another planet to ordinary people pic.twitter.com/bKiqnyqsfK

— Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) October 18, 2016

The post Gary Lineker Slams Anti-Muslim Bigots & Tommy Robinson appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Retweets do equal endorsements if it encourages the sharing of ‘grossly offensive’ materials. Other acts of “virtual mobbing” which incite hatred, can occur criminal charges. Participating in this form of online behaviour may incur charges under the Serious Crime Act 2007.

Prosecutors are reminded that Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 concern online materials deemed ‘grossly offensive’. Yet, “a communication sent has to be more than simply offensive to be contrary to the criminal law”. So in practise, context matters. A high criminal threshold also concerns ‘public interest’ and the right of free speech.

The CPS does not want to curtail free speech but it calls on prosecutors to consider how online statements impact and harm victims. For example, if there is a hate crime element to the communication, or the offence is repeated, this will factor into the seriousness of any potential offence.

Age, however, does matter. The guidance calls on prosecutors to show due lenience for individuals under the age of 18 – as children and young people may lack the maturity to understand the seriousness of such communications. Pursuing minors in this category is ‘rarely’ in the public interest.

Curtailing freedom of speech is not taken lightly – and is restricted to the measures of necessity and proportionality. So, for example, a case may fail this test if a perpetrator demonstrated remorse for their actions, or the communication was not intended for a large audience, where the intended audience did not include the victim or ‘target’ of the communication.

If, however, the motivation for online abuse were motivated by prejudice towards the victim’s ethnic origin, religion or other protected characteristics, this could put comments into the threshold of ‘grossly offensive’. This is also true for communications made during tragic events, where certain communities are impacted.

If prosecutors are unsure about the varieties of the language around anti-Muslim hate, they are encouraged to contact support groups like Tell MAMA or the victim for further clarification. In a welcome move, the CPS also recognises the intersectionality of hate speech. A victim may, for example, be targeted online because of their perceived religious identity and sexual orientation.

As Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders made clear: “The internet’s not an anonymous place where people can post without any consequences. People should think about their own conduct.

“If you are grossly abusive to people, if you are bullying or harassing people online, then we will prosecute in the same way as if you did it offline.”

A CPS consultation on these guidelines will run for the next 13 weeks. Tell MAMA will continue to support the CPS in its understanding of the complexities of anti-Muslim hate.

The post How the new CPS guidance on social media will target anti-Muslim trolls appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Isn’t it time that Twitter take action on such accounts? We think that the platform is simply letting down users when such racism, hatred and poison is allowed to fester.

The post Want to see what Twitter Does Not Remove After Being Informed to? appeared first on TELL MAMA.

There are some who believe that faith is open to ridicule. That is not the issue here, since people can ridicule any faith or set of beliefs and no doubt many will challenge their views. What is deeply problematic is the inclusion of groups of people, anti-Muslim tropes and a sprinkling of racism thrown in for good measure. It also shows the kinds of people drawn to this hashtag.

Some Twitter accounts therefore slipped quite easily between Islam and their prejudice against Muslims and their bigotry and prejudice was clear to see. Take for example @sydneyatheist below, or references to Prophet Muhammad and anti-Muslims tropes thrown around that Muslims are ‘paedophiles’, even though two words come to mind – Jimmy Saville – for a start. Or take open racism through the @JulianusPowell account where it calls a group of angry bearded Muslim men, “Planet of the Apes.”

Or take @harbi607 and the dehumanization of a woman wearing the burqa and niqab (face veil), into ‘the thing.’ Or @WillPPritchard who also throws in some anti-Semitism for good measure. Or @SuperOldHolborn whose views are so skewed that they warrant challenging by others on Twitter.

These are just some of the accounts that were active using this hashtag. Yet, to be fair, we must also add that the hashtag did not catch on and that some accounts, (listed below), started to challenge some of the prejudice being promoted.

Which brings us onto the final point. There will be small scale campaigns like this in the future that will target communities, including Muslims. Twitter is not removing material unless there is a targeted threat or if there are copyright issues with pictures for example. Whatever changes Twitter implements in the future, it is imperative that more people are active in challenging such accounts, and with accounts like @JulianusPowell, ensuring that they are reported in.

If Twitter fails to act on such accounts promoting open racism, we will ensure that they are highlighted with the social media agency. Until more accounts do not challenge hatred, prejudice and bigotry, the very platforms many of us use to connect with others will be used by those who find it easy and acceptable to promote their hatred. We cannot allow that to continue unchallenged.

https://twitter.com/JulianusPowell/status/769724400757305345

The Thing #MakeAMovieIslamic pic.twitter.com/wxCf0kCU9X

— Harbi (@Harbi607) August 28, 2016

Rebel without a head#MakeaMovieIslamic

— David Vance (@DVATW) August 27, 2016

#MakeAMovieIslamic

Dial Muslim for Murder

— PretentiousSillyBore (@SydneyAtheist) August 27, 2016

#makeamovieislamic Honey, I blew up the yids.

— Bill Pritchard (@WillPPritchard) August 27, 2016

https://twitter.com/SuperOldHolborn/status/769641898671833088

#MakeAMovieIslamic Meet the Goat Fockers

— chris lee (@heckmonwyke) August 27, 2016

Some however, challenged those accounts using the #MakeaMovieIslamic hashtag, showing that counter-speech can make a difference, though more accounts needs to challenge such bigotry and prejudice.

https://twitter.com/gxzs/status/769628700807684096

#MakeAMovieIslamic is a disgusting hashtag designed perpetrate hate. What are you doing about it @Twitter?

— Baroque Chic (@BaroqueChic) August 27, 2016

#MakeAMovieIslamic is one of the most hateful and bigoted trends I have seen. I will not ignore abuse rather I will speak out against it.

— Dr Aadil Patel (@Draadilpatel) August 27, 2016

Proof islamophobia has passed dinner table test is the hashtag #MakeAMovieIslamic, if it were about another group, there would be outcry

— Aafaq (@iamaafaq) August 27, 2016

Can't believe how many ignorant people are using this hashtag to perpetuate hate and islamophobia #MakeAMovieIslamic

— مريم زارا (@Lil_Me3ms) August 27, 2016

If #MakeAMovieIslamic triggers you but this map of verified refugee crime doesn't, you're part of the problem. pic.twitter.com/THHgbwaaIC

— Kelly (@platoonofjudoon) August 27, 2016

The post #MakeaMovieIslamic Hashtag Shows Hows Race and Religious Bigotry is Normalised for Some appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Three French anti-racism associations said on Sunday they would file legal complaints against social networks Facebook, Twitter and Google’s Youtube for failing to remove “hateful” content posted on their platforms.

French law requires websites to take down racist, homophobic or anti-semitic material and tell authorities about it.

But French Jewish students union UEJF and anti-racism and anti-homophobia campaigners SOS Racisme and SOS Homophobie said the three firms had removed only a fraction of 586 examples of hateful content the anti-racism groups had counted on their platforms between the end of March and May 10.

Twitter removed only four percent, Youtube seven percent and Facebook 34 percent, according to the associations.

“In light of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook’s profits and how little taxes they pay, their refusal to invest in the fight against hate is unacceptable,” UEJF president Sacha Reingewirtz said in a statement.

Germany got Facebook, Google and Twitter to agree in December to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours.

The post Facebook, Twitter, Youtube face hate speech complaints in France appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We have seen a real desire to reach out and to listen to organisations working with communities and in areas such as tackling hate incidents and crimes. Both organisations are making changes and supporting counter-speech and this is to be welcomed. Interestingly, changes are taking place on these platforms much more regularly and which take into account feedback by users.

For example, today, we have learnt that Twitter provides this much needed reporting in facility. The facility allows users to report in multiple tweets, thereby providing greater context on the information and actions of perpetrators of abuse. The greater the context, the more information that can be acted on.

Tell MAMA has been working with Twitter in trying to ensure that the context of hateful and abusive messages are taken into account. We are one of a handful of organisations who have made this case and we are very grateful that Twitter has listened and responded. We are starting to see a strong desire from Facebook and Twitter to make relevant and useful changes to tackle abuse and these steps are warmly welcomed. They will help victims of abuse.

The post Twitter Develops Multiple Reporting of Tweets to Provide Context appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The case of George Zimmerman and the killing of Trayvon Martin captivated and split America down the lines of race and a gun-culture which is seen as a ‘right’ in some states in the US. In 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of a second degree murder charge in Florida which further led to disbelief in some sections of the African-American population in the US. That killing involved the death of young Trayvon Martin.

In September 2015, Zimmerman went onto retweet a tweet showing the lifeless body of Trayvon Martin to his 10,000 Twitter followers at the time, leading to some commenting on his actions via the following statement:

“You’re a disgusting human being. I know I shouldn’t ever say that, but look at you. All proud for killing a kid.”

This evening, Zimmerman posted the following tweet – shown below, allegedly about an ex-girlfriend and the tweet included her US contact number. Given the nature of the tweet, we reported it into Twitter and humiliating and debasing an ex-partner in this manner is contemptuous. This is what the bigoted Zimmerman said:

“This is Heather. She cheated on me with a dirty Muslim…….she will sleep with anyone.”

They say that a single tweet does not reflect the inner thoughts of a person. In this case, we beg to differ, given the clarity of the contempt for Muslims and Zimmerman’s support for the Florida ‘anti-Muslim zone’ gun shop owner.

If anything, Zimmerman has shown the world what he really believes in; anti-Muslim rhetoric, humiliating women on-line and showing disrespect for the memory of Trayvon Martin. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the ‘Real George Zimmerman.’

.@TherealGeorgeZ George Zimmerman encourages followers to harass/sexually assault ex-girlfriend. @twitter @Support pic.twitter.com/Ae2Gidc4BW

— #SupportTheRebels (@Delo_Taylor) December 3, 2015

The post George Zimmerman Moves onto Anti-Muslim Bigotry & Shaming of Ex-Partner appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We received the following tweet, shown above, from an account that stated,

“One less Muslim.”

This is the appalling, stomach churning response we have received from Twitter, the profit making social media company whose actions on tackling anti-Muslim hate leave a lot to be desired. At the heart of this response lies the problem. This response seems to show some automation or a severe lack of common sense by the individual working on this complaint. This is another epic Twitter fail!

Twitter’s response to the hate speech:

“Hello,

Thank you for your report. Twitter takes reports of this nature very seriously.

We reviewed the content and determined that it was not in violation of the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). We are happy to revisit this decision if you are able to provide further evidence of a violation. Please respond to this email with direct links to the content in question.

We understand you might come across content on Twitter that you find offensive. Twitter users are free to post content (even if potentially inflammatory) provided that they don’t violate the Terms of Service (https://twitter.com/tos) or the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). If you would like more information on how to control your Twitter experience, see this help article: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170134

If you feel threatened or are in danger, please contact your local law enforcement. You can direct the local law enforcement to our Guidelines for Law Enforcement here: https://support.twitter.com/articles/41949“

The post Twitter’s Abysmal Record Demonstrated Here appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The promotion of “good digital citizenship” points you in the direction of extended FAQs relating to existing features.

So for individuals new to the platform it helps. There is specific information breakdowns for teachers, students, and parents.

But some changes could help tackle online Islamophobia: an updated violent threats policy now extends to “threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others”. To their credit, Twitter acknowledge that the previous policy was too narrow when dealing with specific types of abuse.

An added “enforcement option” gives the support team a chance to lock abusive accounts for a period of time. There is another interesting development relating to abusive users in the pipeline.

Shreyas Doshi, Twitter’s Director of Product Management blogged in April that: “we have begun to test a product feature to help us identify suspected abusive Tweets and limit their reach. This feature takes into account a wide range of signals and context that frequently correlates with abuse including the age of the account itself, and the similarity of a Tweet to other content that our safety team has in the past independently determined to be abusive. It will not affect your ability to see content that you’ve explicitly sought out, such as Tweets from accounts you follow, but instead is designed to help us limit the potential harm of abusive content. This feature does not take into account whether the content posted or followed by a user is controversial or unpopular”.

On the surface, the changes, like at Facebook, are superficial and tailored towards ease of access. But dealing with non-direct threats and abuse could limit the capacity of anti-Muslim trolls – and is a welcome change.

The big test is to see how Twitter implements these changes. But their intention to tackle all forms of online abuse with added vigour helps.

The post Will Twitter’s new safety policies tackle online hate? appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Today, this banner was unfurled in Sheffield. We have reported in pictures of the banner and people holding it to the police. Statements on the banner read:

“Who the F…..is Allah”,

“Keep Calm and Hate Muslims “

“Death to Islam”

We believe that some of these statements are illegal and have infringed on criminal laws. A formal complaint has been made to South Yorkshire Police and we would be happy to provide a Community Impact Statement to South Yorkshire Police if there are arrests that are made on this. We will also ensure that we work with forces to send a clear signal that hate, intolerance and bigotry is unacceptable.

The post Banner Inciting Hate Unfurled by EDL in Sheffield appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We provided the relevant journalist with detailed material showing how Twitter was failing to take down accounts and in its duty not to break the law. Today, we wanted to highlight one example. The @davymaccas account has been reported to Twitter on over 40 occasions in 2 years. After numerous suspensions by Twitter this is what this account tweeted out today:

We thought we would give you a flavour of this account holder’s comments that Twitter seems to allow and which emboldens anti-Muslim bigots. These are just a handful of the thousands of anti-Muslim tweets from this account.

Is there anything more to say than #EpicFailTwitter

The post Twitter Continues to Fail in Removing anti-Muslim Hate Accounts, @davymaccas appeared first on TELL MAMA.

One example is the openly hostile ‘No more mosques in Plymouth’ – a paged draped in the imagery and language of British nationalism. A page dedicated to protecting ‘the values of Plymouths British patriots and ensure we fight to stop more mosques coming to Plymouth.’

The original proposal offered local Kurds in Plymouth a cultural centre to learn about their collective histories and culture, to improve their English skills, offer educational classes at weekends and a space for prayer.

In September, the Plymouth Herald ran the headline ‘Mosque plan for former vet surgery in Plymouth’. But the opening paragraph states it could turn ‘into a mosque and cultural centre’. A closer reading of the original application hints at nothing more than an educational and cultural centre with a space to prayer.

But Plymouth City Council rejected the application due to inadequate parking.

The anti-mosque page did link to the controversial Law and Freedom Foundation. But their opposition is merely a proxy for anti-Muslim bigotry as the conspiracy theories pour out (even after the council’s rejection in November):

“To those fascist right wing soft spot for muslims lovers keep supporting them because the day will come when they’ll be the death of this future generation Europeans are being replaced with islamic immigration.” [January 2]

“Every European state will be crippled by islamic immigration in a matter of years. No to the EU no to islamic immigration.” [December 24]

“Britain is being crippled by immigration most of all Islamic immigration that’s right I said it Islamic. In a matter of decades Muslim will rise and civil wars will break making us a minority in our own country.” [December 24]

Rather oddly, the page confuses Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan dictator, with the fictional wizard Gandalf:  “Gandalf once said muslims will take over Europe not with guns but by populating by 8 to our 2 but where is gandalf now you ask?? Killed by his own muslim … Their at war with each other what chance have they got against us none what so ever.”

For the avoidance of doubt, the group are unlikely to own a legitimate copy of Lord of the Rings.

One post called for various far-right groups (including the BNP and EDL) to join forces and fight against a ‘majority muslim multicultural terrorist group of infidels’.

The ‘We do not need another mosque in plymouth’ Facebook page mirrors this rhetoric and the pages sometimes share content.

In a broader and national sense, the Twitter account @MosqueBlocker encourages and helps individuals legally oppose mosque applications.

It explicitly states ‘this page is not for racism,or incitement of violence,peaceful objections only please !!!’ But often warns others about tagging them with anti-Muslim content for fear of suspension. Yet, that caution does not prevent them from retweeting anti-Muslim accounts.

On January 2, @MosqueBlocker tweeted: “This page is not about hating on Islam ,we just feel there are enough mosques and building more causes issues .Hope you understand.”

The individuals behind @MosqueBlocker also use the Facebook page ‘NomoreMosques Opposenow’. One noticeable ‘like’ is ‘No more mosques in Plymouth’.

On December 20 2014, one admin posted ‘can you all head over to my page too and give it a like , thanks’ on the anti-Muslim page ‘No More Mosques’. The request was repeated days later.

Some of the early photos posted on ‘NomoreMosques Opposenow’ page are openly nationalistic and raise questions about its objectivity, as if a page solely dedicated to legally opposing mosques exists objectively.

Other pages under the ‘NomoreMosques Opposenow’ includes ‘Sandwell planning Application’ and ‘Birmingham 2’. Rather noteworthy is that both pages use of a photograph of a man holding a sign that reads ‘No More Mosques’. That photograph is from an English Defence League rally in 2009.

Opposition to mosque applications (legitimate or otherwise) are becoming a way for the far-right (and sympathisers) to push an asinine anti-Muslim echo chamber online. Interested groups proclaiming objectivity in opposition are perhaps less objective than originally claimed.

The post Social Media Used to Galvanise Support Against Mosque Applications appeared first on TELL MAMA.

This is an interview with a victim of targeted online hate. This individual wants to remain anonymous but has been targeted by far right sympathisers and she actively promotes better understanding between communities. This is her voice.

The post A Victim’s Personal Perspective on the Impacts of Online Hate. appeared first on TELL MAMA.

This evening, Twitter users highlighted what seems to be multiple racially aggravated incidents against members of the public travelling on a Virgin Train to Liverpool. Racial abuse was targeting at Black, Chinese and ‘Romanian’ individuals and the tweets highlighted that no Virgin staff that were on hand to intervene to stop the racism listed in the tweets.

Tweets also suggest that an Arab looking gentleman was detained by police, and it seems, no action was taken against the perpetrators.

We will be writing to Virgin Trains again to highlight racism on their trains and to push home the fact that the Company should have a zero tolerance policy on their trains to such racism and bigotry. Anyone promoting racism should be immediately reported to the police and removed from the train, with police assistance. For such bigotry and intolerance to be targeted towards passengers travelling on trains in our country is intolerable and we urge Virgin Trains and British Transport Police to review on-board cameras to identify the individuals responsible and if the racism is confirmed, then charges should be sought. Nothing less will be acceptable if Virgin is to be seen to be effective in tackling such issues.

(We would like to thank the Twitter account below for highlighting the incident on-line.)

The post Virgin Comes in For Criticism Regarding Racism on Trains appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Here are some examples of the hate promoted from this account:
“Vote Labour get our kids raped by Muslims,
Vote Conservative get our kids raped by Jews,
Vote Lib Dem get a free Unicorn,
Vote UKIP get #UKIP,” says this extremist neo-Nazi

Or take this tweet which states:

“#Muslims are allowed to gang rape our children but if we tweet about it we get jailed. #multiculturalism #BNP #UKIP #EDL #rotherham #CSA #BF,” as he tags a number of extreme far right groups. What is also interesting to note, is his support for UKIP, which we do not class as an extreme far right group, those which is attracting such supporters.

Or take this which highlights the neo-Nazi nature of this account:

Not only does this account promote anti-Muslim bigotry, it also promotes antisemitism, yet for Twitter this seems to be something that they either are unwilling to act on, or just not bothered to do anything about. Furthermore, on such accounts, we have received notifications from Twitter that the accounts do not infringe their terms and conditions which is frankly farcical.

John Mann MP has consistently stated that social media providers need to do more to tackle the hate and bigotry emanating from their platforms. Furthermore, these platforms which make billions of pounds of revenue and which are also significantly adding to the promotion of prejudice, need to step up to the mark. For example, nearly 80% of our resources go on tackling on-line hate through Twitter and Facebook and these platforms are impacting significantly on the police, third sector organisations and on the resources of Central Government. Enough really is enough and there may soon come a time when one of these social media providers faces a legal challenge based on their lack of action on accounts that leads someone to harm someone of a particular faith or race.

The post Twitter Happy to Host Extreme Far Right Fascist Accounts & Continues to Do so appeared first on TELL MAMA.

You see, here lies the problem. Over 80% of the resources of TELL MAMA goes on reporting in social media hate given the level of anti-Muslim bigotry on-line. The two main platforms through which anti-Muslim hatred are promoted are Facebook and Twitter, yet, none of these social media giants, (with all of their associated profits), take financial responsibility with regard to supporting organisations who are at the front-line of tackling hate.

With 80% of our resources depleted in terms of human resource, financial and research costs, (plus a range of other project related costs), this simply cannot continue on. Facebook and Twitter cannot expect organisations to haemorrhage resources because of their platforms and where their stock response is that more monitoring and bureaucracy needs to take place so that the social media platforms may improve their customer service profiles. This is simply ludicrous and ultimately beneficial for the social media platform with no recompense for the pressures caused to third-party reporting agencies, many of whom are swamped with on-line reports from members of the public.

However, we must also not lose sight of the fact that this Government has not taken a robust approach to social media providers in making clear that they must invest and support hate crime projects at the front-line of tackling bigotry and supporting victims. The discussions with social media providers have been piece-meal, cordial and based on ensuring that these social media giants remain on-side. Money, it seems, speaks rather than ensuring that these multi-billion pound companies pay their duty to society as a means of off-setting the very real problems that these platforms have created for victims of hate and civil society groups.

It is therefore essential that the Home Office, civil society groups working on hate crime work and social media providers meet. With resources shrinking and with social media company profits rising, there is a natural balance in exploring how both Twitter and Facebook can pool a fund in the future. This facilitated dialogue is essential with both the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government being involved.

In the end, the public purse cannot foot most of the bill of hate crime work which is largely happening now. It should be Facebook and Twitter who should foot the bill given the level of resource that their platforms suck out of organisations like TELL MAMA.

The post Facebook and Twitter Have to Take Responsibility and Pay For Impacts of Their Platforms appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Garonn Helm, 21, was sentenced to four weeks in prison after his tweet to Ms Berger juxtaposed a Holocaust-era star on the MP’s head with the hashtag “Hiter was right”. Helm labelled Ms Berger a “communist Jewess” and then tweeted at her, “You can always trust a Jew to show their true colours eventually.”

Helm was born into a large family that broke apart upon the death of his father – he then retreated into the online world and found a platform for his toxic racist beliefs – whether his beliefs came naturally or where a product of online radicalisation remains to be seen. Yet, Helm’s links to the neo-Nazi group National Action exist in the offline and online world.

National Action operate on the fringes but like other far-right groups exploited the horrific abuse in Rotherham.

Helm retreated into a belief that non-white individuals, Muslims and Jews are existential threats. So extreme in his beliefs, he described the English Defence League as “Jew loving piss-heads”.

National Action deliberately target university campuses and a photo posted on September 9 features members of the group throwing Nazi salutes at the University of Leeds.

The leaders of the group speak in the language of violence and foster a siege mentality against cultural Marxism and multiculturalism.

On August 31, Helm tweeted, “#Islam is a cancer, #WOTAN is the answer.” Wotan (Odin) is one of the principle Gods of Norse mythology. Helm’s Twitter name ‘‘Aethelwulf’ translates from Old English as ‘Noble Wolf’.

Other rambling tweets included, “The #Jew will never understand the connection we have with our land, for they have no land of their own. They are genocidal bandits.”

“Muslim dogs starting #Sharia patrols in Germany? Get out and smash those child-raping savages, lads!”

In early September, Helm claimed his affiliation to National Action was behind his expulsion from college (but this remains a speculative claim).

A police raid on his property revealed a collection of Nazi memorabilia. In court, Helm’s actions were described as “calculated” and “deeply upsetting”.

The extreme tweets are a window into the mind of an individual who is rightfully in prison for his vitriol. But the concern is whether or not the activities will continue or escalate upon release. Muslim and Jewish communities must be vigilant against this new wave of neo-Nazism.

The post Neo-Nazi Who Abused Luciana Berger MP, an Ardent Antisemite and Anti-Muslim Bigot appeared first on TELL MAMA.

What we are concerned about are those who seek to target individuals on-line, to harass, abuse or denigrate them because of a part of their identity, or when they seek to humiliate and harass them knowing that their actions will have negative impacts on the victim. With this in mind, we have developed material for members of the public on this area and we thank Dr Imran Awan for his direction and leadership in this area of work.

We therefore warmly welcome the proposals put forward by Chris Grayling which have been reported in the media. We have also called for better training for police forces on issues such as harassment which have been highlighted and which have blighted the lives of many people who have reported into us through the TELL MAMA project.

Also of importance is a proposed rise in the statute of limitations around time limits for acting on cases. This is an area that has affected some of our cases where action could not be taken since incident timescales crossed over the 6 month cut-off period. We welcome proposals that the period should be extended to 3 years and that incidents/crimes that take place within a 3 year period can be reported in and acted upon by law enforcement agencies.

The new proposals also raise sentencing for trolling and harassment from 6 months to 2 years. Again, we welcome these actions given the impacts on victims and the fear, anxiety and depression that they have caused in some people. In particular, we have worked with individuals who have had mental health difficulties and who have been unable to cope with repeated trolling and harassment. Such actions can lead to terrible impacts on people’s lives and we therefore welcome the proposed quadrupling in sentencing.

Additionally, these proposals if approved and extended into the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill will also mean that the Social Media Guidelines produced by the Crown Prosecution Service on prosecuting social media cases will have to change. The guidelines were released in mid 2013 and will need to be revised again, showing the speed of change and developments caused by social media platforms.

Lastly, we would like to make a plea to the Government. It seems that changes are proposed when well-known celebrities or personalities are affected by social media trolling. We would like to stress that projects like TELL MAMA have been working with people at a grass-roots level who have suffered such issues for years, though who have never had the chance for their cases to be highlighted through press sources. We therefore want to stress that policy should not be drafted on the back of celebrity cases but on the back of regular consultations with hate crime reporting organisations who are picking up such issues in real-time and at a grass-roots level. Nonetheless, these proposals are welcomed and much needed.

The post We Welcome Stronger Laws Against Social Media Trolling Through the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Obviously being a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) may sharpen the mind given that it is a high-profile role and where the use of language becomes even more important. This is not about ‘being PC’ which we can already envisage will be the response from some. It is about ensuring that as an MEP, material is not circulated that can potentially build barriers between voters and residents who may be from a specific faith group, for example, and their local MEP.

So, we put to the public this example from Jane Collins MEP where she links to an article which unnecessarily brings into play the term ‘Jewess’. What this has to do with the issue raised last year in new sources about Ms Harman’s support for a group is beyond us, though the way that the term is used, can be read by some, as being derogatory.

Also, the term is heavily loaded and has been used historically to denigrate women of Jewish heritage. Finally, whilst we work on tackling anti-Muslim hate, we come across such articles on many occasions where the faith of an individual is inserted into a piece which has nothing to do with the issue itself. This we believe, is unacceptable.

The post Jane Collins MEP for UKIP & Linking to an Article Which Uses the Term ‘Jewess’ appeared first on TELL MAMA.

1)     http://t.co/lFWDtvsNLC Oslo, Norway: 100% of rapes committed by ‘non european immigrants’ (muslims) Cultural enrichment,drowning in diversity

Robinson links to a debunked anti-Muslim story from 2011. A translated police report found, “Crude generalizations that have given the impression that rapists are only foreigners – and primarily Muslims – are shown to be inadequate and erroneous.”  

“The ethnic profile varies within the different types of rape, but for all types except assault rape the largest group is composed of Norwegian perpetrators.”

2)     http://t.co/nl04Idl2lm Fear of offending islam and muslims i.e #islamophobia in police is the reason why they act in such a manner. #Traitors

In spite of Robinson’s claims, his arrest had more to do with an alleged police obstruction than fear of offending Islam. The official EDL Twitter feed acknowledged the nature of the 2013 arrest: “Tommy Robinson & Kev Caroll arrested for Obstructing the police and carted off.”

According to Sky Correspondent Tom Parmenter, police warned Robinson (and Kevin Carroll) about the prospect of arrest if their charity walk continued towards Woolwich.

3)      http://t.co/lgouaagFor Couple singing Peppa Pig tune to toddler ‘forced off bus after complaints they were being racist’ #pork #islam

A viral hit (that received over 50k online shares) made serious allegations against a Rotherham bus driver and Muslim passenger. The Mail headline read, “Couple singing Peppa Pig tune to toddler ‘forced off bus after complaints they were being racist’ because it goes against Muslim pork ban”.

But the driver contradicts the couple. A First spokesperson told the Daily Mail: “The driver told us he heard no reference to racism but we are investigating the incident and have not yet drawn a conclusion.”

4)     http://t.co/tXhhQycQhy BREAKING: Muslims Shout “Praise Allah!” Surround OK Police Following Press Conference on Beheading. Reciting Koran.

Robinson links to a false story. The source (@Landonlawson78) followed the Islamophobic ‘Bare Naked Islam’ and ‘KILL MUSLIM RODENTS’. A cached version of the account reveals the use of a stock profile image.  The account is no longer accessible via Twitter.

5)     Ed Miliband : We need more Muslims in the UK http://t.co/aoFmxiQPvJ who is voting labour

The story originates from a 2013 news report titled ‘Ed Miliband says he will increase Muslim representation in the parliament,’ it took place during Labour’s Eid celebration. Yet, the link Robinson shared is full of vulgar comments:

“Oi, Ed Miliband! Fuck off back to the desert and take all your monkey friends with you, you cunt.”

“Kill him!!! He is a traitor of our civilization.”

Tommy Robinson is not responsible for what others post, but it reveals an unsavoury readership.

6)     http://t.co/B30FHu7QsF Eight men have been arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual activity with a child in Tower Hamlets. #muslim

The story highlights the ethnicity (Albanian) of the alleged perpetrators but not religion.

7)      http://t.co/OCNaaeIOxq ‘Political correctness’ allows Muslims easier time in struggling jail Tip of the iceberg

The issue is not of ‘political correctness’ but staff shortages.

The post 7 Simple Facts That Do Not Point to a ‘Reformed’ Tommy Robinson, by Steve Rose appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Community information on this account suggests that the individual may reside in Liverpool which meant that we reported the tweets in centrally through a Ministry of Justice and ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) site and to ensure that the case did not fall through any cracks, we also reported it to Merseyside Police directly.

Given the nature of the tweets that we have listed, one would assume that a report from a third-party national hate crime organisation would be taken seriously, as other forces do. Yet, after reporting this account in again, (we count approximately 16 times since 2012), we were shocked to receive what can only be called a bureaucratic brush off by a Merseyside Officer, with no further action taken by them.

We have listed the response below and think that it is, frankly, not good enough.

“Good morning. I have taken advice from a senior officer here at Mereyside (sic) Police.  The advice is that until there is proof that this person resides on Merseyside you would have to report it to your own force area.”

The world of bureaucracy it seems, is alive and well and given the nature of the threats and the fact that community intelligence led us to report to Merseyside Police, this is probably one of the worst displays of ‘passing the buck’ we have seen to date.

The post Bureaucracy & Passing the Buck from Merseyside Police appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Collection of Data

– As suggested previously in the FAQ section of our site we do not trawl for data. Individuals report in hate incidents and crimes and this means that our caseworkers will record information on the basis of the perception of the victim. This is the same procedure and basis of recording used by police forces and other agencies like the CST, (Community Security Trust). However, we also believe that it is essential to have some form of corroborating evidence such as a snapshot of targeted hate on-line which specifically mentions the Muslim identity of the victim, for the case to be classified as anti-Muslim in nature. Only then will the case be counted in the final statistics published annually. Without corroborating evidence, the incident will be recorded, fed into the Association of Chief Police Officer’s reporting web-site and will not form part of the final statistics in the annual report. Triangulation and corroboration of data is therefore key.

– Front-line caseworkers will work with victims on a case by case basis and will record material, pass it to police forces, support the emotional and practical needs of victims and make adequate referrals where appropriate. A Senior Caseworker will then check the cases by looking at the contents of the case, the data that is inputted to validate whether it is an anti-Muslim incident or not, the actions taken and outcomes of the case. At this second stage, changes can be and have been made and we have changed the classification of some cases and this oversight is key in building a robust set of checks and balances in the data capture process. Finally, the Director of the TELL MAMA project undertakes a weekly ‘ dip test’ of 30 cases that the caseworker will have dealt with to ensure that a tertiary check of the data collected takes place. If there is a discrepancy or error, the Senior Caseworker is directed to re-check all of the cases in the 2 weeks prior to this incident to ensure consistency and to re-check for any other errors.

On-line vs Offline and Feedback

– Our report breaks the data into the on-line and off-line world. Possibly, the ease of reporting on-line makes a majority of our cases clustered around on-line anti-Muslim hate. We are aware that there are some on the right of the political spectrum who do not believe that on-line hate and targeted prejudice is worth recording or reporting. They believe that only the most violent crimes are the ones to monitor and track and on-line targeted hate should not be included in hate crime monitoring work. Yet, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Ministry of Justice and other civil society actors all stipulate that people should have the right to report in targeted prejudice and this forms the basis for hate crime reporting work. This means that all hate crime third party reporting centres are based on the fact that on-line and off-line hate incidents can be reported in.

– The British Crime Survey of 2010/2011 states clearly the emotional and mental health impacts of hate crimes. Also, targeted cyber-hate campaigns lead victims to feel fear, anger, heightened anxiety levels and a sense of violation and vulnerability. Dismissing these impacts on the basis that there are no ‘physical scars,’ is not only far from how hate incident/crime reporting and recording takes place, it dismisses the views, feelings, sense of hopelessness and internal anger that builds up with some victims after an incident. Therefore on-line hate incidents do have very real impacts and also affect the sense of dignity and identity of the victim.

– We also acknowledge that we receive some cases where actual (and not threatened violence), has taken place against individuals. The impact on the victim does also include a heightened sense of fear and anxiety after the incident, anger, depression and a sense of despair, apart from the physical injuries. In the Teesside report to be launched tomorrow, (4/07/14), both on-line and off-line cases are listed separately and we may consider listing descriptive case studies in the future showing the types of cases we receive. Reviewing cases where actual physical violence has taken place and listing them as case studies will also help to show the actual impact that street based and real world cases have on victims.

Example of Incidents

– We have been asked about the types of on-line cases that we have included in the statistics which Teesside University have reviewed. Here are some examples with the specifics on the cases removed to ensure anonymity:

On-line Anti-Muslim Hate Incidents:

Case 1: The victim received a series of 7 tweets that were targeted at them. The tweets ranged from wishing death to the individual involved because they were Muslim, through to the posting of the address (the wrong address), on-line. The address posted, according to the perpetrator, was where the victim lived. This case was included in the statistical database passed on for independent analysis by Teesside University. Key factors for its inclusion in the database were based on (i) the victim reporting in (ii) the perception and corroborating evidence that the person was targeted because they were Muslim (iii) Consistent targeting of the individual and substantive evidence and material on the case. We also verified that there was a victim behind the incident.

Case 2: A mosque reported in threats to damage the mosque which had been reported to it by a member of the congregation who picked up the threats on-line. The individual had found postings from a Far Right splinter group which suggested that individuals call, harass and to damage the mosque in question. Given the context of the Far Right group involved and the targeting of the faith institution, this case was reported in and was included in the final statistical database passed on for independent analysis by Teesside University.

Street based incidents that have been included in the final database include threatening comments made against people where the language reflects abuse against the individual because of their Muslim faith identity. Other cases include (i) actual arson (ii) hate letters sent to mosques (iii) Hijab and Niqab pulling incidents (iv) spitting and assaults (v) extreme violent incidents, (though thankfully, these are in the very low numbers and end up with the police where they rightly belong.)

The post Background to the Release of the 2013/2014 TELL MAMA Data appeared first on TELL MAMA.

As many were celebrating International Women’s Day, Richard Dawkins, not one to shy away from the limelight, decided to get onto Twitter and give us an insight into a range of tweets that resonated with him. However, some of the re-tweets and tweets from Dawkins are nothing less than shocking, especially when Dawkins re-tweets material from a sympathiser of an extreme anti-Islamic group whose founder overtly plays on racial identity politics. No doubt, given the opportunistic nature of the extreme anti-Islamic group whose sympathiser Dawkins re-tweeted, they will seek to position themselves as being the mainstream by associating themselves with Dawkins. We hope that Dawkins dissociates himself completely from the racial identity politics and the virulently extreme anti-Islamic nature of the group if they attempt to associate themselves with him and we have previously highlighted this group here.

Anjem Choudhary – Who Does He Represent?

 So let us look at tweets coming out from Dawkins account yesterday on International Women’s Day. Let us start with the following tweet below where Dawkins re-tweets the words of Anjem Choudhary. If Dawkins believes that Anjem Choudhary represents Muslims in the UK, then he is sadly mistaken since the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims in the UK despise the hate and toxic bile that comes out of the mouth of this character. What is interesting to note though is the comment in the tweet above the Anjem Choudhary one where Dawkins suggests, “I don’t give a **it what colour someone is. You’re racist……….Arguments are won/lost on their merits.” We will refer back to this statement later in this article.

Women’s Sexuality

We were then sent a set of tweets from members of the public on the ongoing Twitter discussions that Dawkins was having.

What is key to note is that Dawkins re-tweets a tweet from a member of the public which states, “Mustn’t forget how Muslim girls pray for the day their clitoris’ are sliced off – how dare we deny them this honour.” So let us get this straight, Muslim women are praying for the day when someone denies them the right to have a clitoris? More questions then come to mind. If Dawkins talks about rationalism versus cultural relativism or tackling abhorrent cultural practices based on human rights and the merits of arguments, then why is he re-tweeting a statement that is not only deeply offensive to all Muslim women, since there is no specificity in the statement around who may be affected, but which is factually just inaccurate. Where is the logic in that or is just when something fits an anti-Islamic or anti-Muslim position? Furthermore, just to be clear, FGM (female genital mutilation) is not Islamically sanctioned nor does it affect just one faith. Those cases in the UK mainly affect the Somali and Egyptian community and are culturally based. Also, in rural areas in Egypt, FGM affects both Christian and Muslim communities. But hey, why let these facts get in the way of Dawkins and Twitter.

Afghan Women

Or take the following tweets:

Dawkins tweet infers that in the 1970’s, Afghan women used to dress as in the picture which he tweeted out. He states, “On international Women’s Day, how can anyone stand up and defend this loathsome religion.” By loathsome religion, he meant Islam, though let’s go back again to the facts. Dawkins blames Islam for the current state of social affairs of women in Aghanistan. He mentions nothing of the international interventionism for over a decade in the Cold War that fed fundamentalist groups who were used as proxies in the war against the Soviet Union. Indeed Ahmed Rashid’s books on the Taliban outline clearly the proxy war that fed arms to extreme groups in Afghanistan which destabilized the country and plunged it into an arena of constant war. Nor does Dawkins seem to clarify, if we want to take a rational and analytical approach to the social roles of women in Afghanistan, those Muslim female campaigners in Afghanistan who risk their lives daily to fight for women’s rights whilst praying 5 times a day and holding their own as believing Muslims in some of the most difficult of circumstances. But hey, who can reflect on that whilst sitting in the peaceful, scenic and easy lifestyle of Oxford and its dreamy spires, huh Richard?

Re-tweeting Material from Sympathisers of Virulently Anti-Islamic ‘Counter-Jihadi’ Groups

The most disturbing element of Dawkins Twitter conversation was the following.

The individual in question makes clear on her Twitter account that she supports the extreme anti-Islamic nationalistic group, Liberty GB, (see snapshot below):

We have written about this group before through a posting on the TELL MAMA site which can be found here. However, remember the tweet from earlier where Dawkins suggests that someone is racist and that arguments are won on their merits? Well, here is the founder of the Group, (Liberty GB), a man called Paul Weston. Before we move onto Paul Weston, what is clear is that yesterday Dawkins re-tweeted material from a sympathiser of a nationalistic, race based, ‘Counter-Jihad,’ anti-Islamic group which has also been highlighted by Hope Not Hate through this excellent background material on the ‘Counter-Jihad’ Network.

So, let us look at Paul Weston and some of his statements. In this statement uploaded in June 2013 entitled, ‘I am a racist,‘ Weston states, “I wish to preserve the people of my country,” which then begs the question as to who are ‘my people?’ He then takes a fatalistic view suggesting that (his people), “are under a terrible threat at the moment” and goes onto talk about migration and immigration. It is then followed by this statement which shows the anti-Islamic nature of this group. Weston states, “Everywhere you look, you see problems with Islam…….they are violent, they are, dare I say it, to re-enforce my racist credentials, a thoroughly savage political and religious ideology.” So, is Weston suggesting that followers of Islam are savages and inherently violent by following Islam? The statements speak volumes on the stance that this group is taking allied with race based statements. In fact, taken together, we found the statements chilling in their effect.

Furthermore, in the following You Tube statement, entitled ‘Preventing White Genocide‘ which was uploaded on Paul Weston’s site in November 2013, he states:

“We need to talk about race……and we do need to talk about race because in the 21st century, unless thing change, will see the virtual extinction of my white European race.”

Sound ominous and nationalistic, well he carries on:

“This is not such a tremendous problem, as long as we retain control of our own homelands.”

The excruciatingly painful and simplistic comments based on race and nationalism continue to the point where Weston suggests that white babies born in America are now an ethnic minority. Yes, migrants to the United States, are now an ethnic minority, whilst he fails to consider who the indigenous people were in North America before the Mayflower landed. Weston also seems to forget that settlers in North America were a mix of cultures from Europe and wider afield, such as China, but hey, what are a few facts when rhetoric and nationalism based on the politics of race are what you are pushing? Let us also not forget the fact that Paul Weston launched the British Freedom Party pact with Kevin Carroll and Tommy Robinson in April 2012.

You see, the point we are making is that Dawkins is effectively recycling material from individuals who openly support such a political grouping.That in of itself, is worrying.

Finally, we go back to the statement that Dawkins made earlier, ” I don’t give a **it what colour someone is. You’re racist……….Arguments are won/lost on their merits.” Are they Richard?

The post Dawkins Again, Retweeting Lazy Stereotypes About Muslims appeared first on TELL MAMA.

What is clear is that tweeting out an image of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, is deeply offensive to many Muslims and whilst some will say that they have the right to offend, it also has to be said that being offensive does not stop others from campaigning against such offensive actions. It is the cut and thrust of politics and social positions and that is that. Conversely, death threats and targeted hate, (in this case against Mr Nawaz) are totally unacceptable and could even tip into being one of those ‘Salman Rushdie’ moments, where an over-reaction leads to a further maligning and caricaturing of Muslims, because of their heavy response.

Right now, positions are becoming entrenched and this is not helping anyone. Those backing Maajid’s position, (of which there are also some known Far Right and anti-Muslim agitators), suggest that Muslims are seeking to curtail ‘freedom of expression.’ Those campaigning against him, (of which there are those who are virulently against LGBTQ rights, for example), suggest that he is instigating for political reasons and to be the martyr since it positions him well and further adds to a persona that is adept at utilising the media.

We wanted to state our position on this matter:

– Anti-Muslim hate and prejudice work is complex (as is tackling antisemitism), and depends on the context of the individual or organisation making comments or statements, for example. In this instance, Maajid Nawaz can hardly fit into the mould of someone who has a history of overt anti-Muslim prejudice and whether or not his Organisation (Quilliam), has been involved in labelling other groups as extremist, is not being anti-Muslim in nature.
– On the basis of this, if Nick Griffin tweeted out an anti-Muslim cartoon or a cartoon of Mohammed, then this would be a different context and even then, there would be little that legally could be done apart from highlighting the nauseous and toxic nature of his politics. Maajid Nawaz tweeting out a cartoon is a completely different context. Whether this action infringes on Parliamentary Candidacy rules within the Liberal Democrats is a different issue, yet knowing the Liberal Democrats, there will be no change to Maajid’s candidacy. It will run its course.
– This furore has simply re-enforced in the minds of some, the notion that Muslims take slight with the smallest of matters. For many Muslims, the perception may well be that Islam is once again being mocked and the strength of this feeling should not be under-estimated or disregarded. These perceptions have been affected by newspaper headlines, news stories, article pieces and other write-ups over the last few decades and the grievance felt is deep.

However, what is missing in all of this, is the reality that there are those in communities who campaign against Muslims and who use social media and other sources to bestialise Muslims. Their view is a twisted world view of a ‘Muslim take-over.’ This whole event desensitises some within communities to anti-Muslim prejudice and may well develop in them a sense of frustration and rejection on issues of anti-Muslim prejudice. In other words, when there is actual anti-Muslim prejudice, there may be fewer people willing to acknowledge and stand up against it in the future. This is deeply troubling.

Once again, it is important to state that work on countering anti-Muslim prejudice needs cool and calm heads. There are detractors out there who will continue to attack this work, yet this whole debacle may well have given succour and strength to these very detractors. The best thing right now is for all to step back and cool the rhetoric and for the threats to cease. If this means getting community groups round the table with Maajid, we are more than happy to do this, but the battle for ‘hearts and minds’ based on a cartoon have to stop. For God’s sake, move on!
–

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We have been campaigning for over two years for Twitter to acknowledge that it had to make reporting in procedures easier and to have access points for respected third-party reporting projects where direct access to Twitter could be ensured on specific cases where there were serious threats of violence and hate. When we launched the TELL MAMA project two years ago, Twitter was effectively, an open platform where people were posting the most virulent forms of hate and where anti-Muslim prejudice was rife. Imran Awan from Birmingham City University just recently made the case that he believed that Twitter had become the ‘Wild Wild West’ for those who promote hate and there are many who work in hate crime work who will still agree with him.

So, sadly, it came as no surprise that Stan Collymore became the latest victim of racism and hate through Twitter. Stan retweeted the racist comments to his wider audience and many of the tweets cannot be evidenced since, thankfully, those promoting the racism were suspended. Some of the material targeted at Stan Collymore was so shocking that it led to a barrage of hate tweets against the perpetrators which made them stop in their tracks. Whilst the latter shows that racism is not acceptable in our communities, it nonetheless re-enforces the fact that Twitter needs to think carefully about its brand which is being tarnished by groups like the English Defence League and many other hate promoting groups. Whilst we have hundreds of ticket copies evidencing that we have reported some of the most pernicious hate accounts, they sadly remain active. Time will only tell whether Twitter takes the mantle in ensuring that accounts which consistently promote hate are closed. If they are not, it is a matter of time before legal action is taken against the social media platform. (Some of the tweets targeted at Stan Collymore, are shown below).

The post Twitter & the Platform Used by Haters appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Few of us will forget the moment when Salma Yaqoob appeared on BBC Question Time, and tweeted the following comments to her followers: “Apart from this threat to cut my throat by #EDL supporter (!) overwhelmed by warm response to what I said on #bbcqt.’’ The person arrested, in connection with the comments, Steve Littlejohn added: “if that salma yaqueb’s there, cut her f### throat, rip weyman bennets teeth out with pliers and carve edl across all the asian scum who try and attack us”.

Sadly, many of us also recognise this level of online abuse via platforms such as Twitter.  I personally have now become accustomed to seeing online trolling and anti-Muslim abuse all targeting me because of my work on anti-Muslim prejudice and the problems of cyber hate against Muslim communities.  Simply by using some common words used to abuse Muslim communities with you can find a whole plethora of online anti-Muslim abuse with the #Muslimpigs, #Muzzrats (used by Tommy Robinson), #Muslimpaedophiles and #Muslimcunts.

The overwhelming does show that words, visual images, tweets, Facebook comments and online videos of hate not only cause offence but can have a huge impact on the victims they target.   It allows online behaviour to become normalized by offenders which allows a perpetrator to use in many cases anonymity, manipulation and social control to target their victims.  Mehdi Hasan, the Huffington Post, UK political director recalls the impact of these online hate comments on his family. He states that: “To say that I find the relentlessly hostile coverage of Islam, coupled with the personal abuse that I receive online, depressing is an understatement. There have been times – for instance, when I found my wife curled up on our couch, in tears, after having discovered some of the more monstrous and threatening comments on my New Statesman blog – when I’ve wondered whether it’s all worth it.”

Equally ordinary Muslims have also experienced this online hate which has had an impact upon them and their families as shown by the research which I have conducted with Muslim families. The ‘hate’ comments made online can have a negative impact on the victims who are targeted and can be very upsetting and unsettling for them.   Post Woolwich the Internet and social networking sites have been used to by groups like the far right to attack Muslim communities. This type of prejudice follows a ‘drip drip’ effect and whilst it has intensified following Woolwich, the level of online anti-Muslim prejudice remains on a steady increase.

Many of the comments posted online through social networking sites, likeTwitter or Facebook consist of an ‘extremist’ and incendiary undertone which attacks the whole of ethos of the government’s social cohesion strategy and risks stoking up more hatred in particular in the case of online Islamophobia.  Indeed, as Tell MAMA recently noted that they had received (74%) of reported online anti-Muslim abuse.  Some of the cases reported to Tell MAMA included online anti-Muslim abuse against high-profile Muslim figures such as Baroness Warsi and Jemima Khan both of whom were subjected to online threats which were reported to the police by Tell MAMA.

Unfortunately, however policing online anti-Muslim abuse remains poor and more needs to be done in providing a safe environment where people are open to reporting online abuse to the police without fear that they will not be taken seriously.  The importance of online Islamophobia does not always get the media and political attention it merits. It is often disregarded as ‘less valuable data’ or people are more concerned with the visible threats Muslims face. This is the problem when trying to ascertain what constitutes ‘high’ level and ‘low’ level incidents. For example, the use of targeted ‘Trolling’ can constitute online harassment and has a huge impact on the victims.   Sadly, as a society the way we deal with online anti-Muslim hate is with a laissez-faire attitude at best and at worst leads to us simply asking the victim either to Block someone via Twitter or to simply close your account.   This is why we need to try and build a new culture towards understanding the victim first and foremost.

Imran Awan is Deputy Director for the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University and co-editor of the books ‘Policing Cyber Hate’ and ‘Extremism, Counter-Terrorism and Policing’.  

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‘Why do people bother reporting this in?’

‘Anyone who works on such matters is just wasting money and time.’

These are the usual comments that detractors of our work and those who choose to turn a blind eye against such work say. The range of arguments go on and on, yet, on the flipside, if such comments were made against other faiths, other races and other groups of individuals, some of the detractors would be up in arms. They would be shouting from the rafters and in fact, some of them do, as long as the perpetrators of hate are Muslims. When the victims are Muslim, well then, it seems that the statements listed above become the norm. So, shall we look at some of the tweets and on-line hate that permeates social media platforms on a daily basis? Take this for example, a tweet undertaken by an account called ‘Snidey_UK.’ This account has been reported in a number of times. This is a tweet that we received today, (07/06/13):

Is this acceptable or inciting hate?

So let us look at another example of hate material that floods through social media platforms on a daily basis. Here for example is one which we received in the last 6 weeks.

Now the question is, are these statements acceptable? Pretty simply, no. They are prejudicial since they group Muslim members together in a prejudicial manner.  Do they infringe existing laws? Well in these cases, yes, given that there are a dearth of other hate statements from these accounts.

Laws need to be proportionate and with the protection of freedom of speech at the heart of them. We can all agree with this. However, when on-line material like the examples above are promoted on a daily basis and which filter out to hundreds or thousands of people on a the daily basis, then action needs to be taken through legal and police channels to stop such statements pervading into communities. If anyone thinks that these do not have community impacts then ask yourself this. If the term ‘Muslim’ was changed to another faith community – would you think it acceptable? If yes, then we should get worried. If no, then we have a lot of community education work to do together to ensure that no community lives in fear of prejudice, hate and aggression.

The post Online Postings of Hate – Permeating the Web appeared first on TELL MAMA.

You would think that Tommy Robinson would be a bit more careful regarding his hate tweets after this experience. Well, you would think so, but with an ego the size of the grand canyon, the slight matter of the law seems to slip by the mind of this self-proclaimed leader of the motley English Defence League. Take for example, this tweet he put out a few days ago on the 2nd of April:

So let’s take this statement. There is a vast amount of academic information which shows how the Nazis used terms to associate Jews with vermin, with disease and infestation. Well, hey ho, the EDL leader who states that he is not racist seems to regurgitate the very same sick narratives, though mention this to him and you are likely to receive a Twitter rant blaming Muslims for all of the ills with this country. The EDL continue to try and maintain the old facade that they are not racist. “Islam is not a race they say.” Well, such prejudiced hate filled geniuses seem to give life to the narratives of hate that were used to marginalise and isolate out Jews in the 1930’s and we all know where that ended up. We also know that they are no friends of Jewish communities and scratch the surface of Far Right groups and out pops the age old anti-Semitism that is entwined in their DNA.

Whilst we clearly do not believe that a Holocaust will take place again, nonetheless, the poison of the EDL and other extreme Far Right groups must be checked. They not only feed off the extremism of their counterparts such as groups like Al Muhajiroun, they also help to radicalise others and provide cover for more extreme Far Right groups to operate within. Last week for example, we spoke to an ex-Far Right campaigner who walked away from an extreme Far Right group and who has started to piece his life together. Courageously, he talked to us about how the EDL were used as cover for more extreme groups to operate under and this cover was perfect for undertaking recruitment and criminality. His life was shattered by the extremist poison that was injected into him and his last words on the phone to us were, “I have done so many bad things, all I want to do is some good.”

Lastly, in our previous posting we raised the case of George Milnes, the Huddersfield based EDL sympathiser who has gone onto harass both us in TELL MAMA and a number of individuals across the country. Well, it seems George Milnes likes popping up wherever there are hate promoters. Take for example, the above tweet from Tommy Robinson. A glance at the retweeters shows George Milnes, (second from the left) and his ‘commando’ picture which he feels reflects his Twitter account @CommandoPirate. Looks like Milnes has become another groupie to the leader of the EDL. George – you might want to stop leaving so many electronic traces of yourself on-line. Either way, Bedfordshire Police will be receiving a copy of the tweet from Tommy.

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