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LONDON — Britain’s Keir Starmer rebuked social media firms for the “violent disorder” whipped up on their platforms, after days of far-right riots in the U.K. that followed the killing of three children.
Hundreds have been arrested after violent clashes in British cities and towns following a deadly stabbing at a children’s dance class in the seaside town of Southport on Monday.
Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, 17, has been charged with the murders of Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9.
The street clashes, which included violent protests near a vigil for the three girls and a rally outside No.10 Downing Street in central London, have in part been fueled by online disinformation.
Before the accused man was named, social media posts falsely claimed the accused was an asylum seeker who had just arrived in the U.K. and that authorities had covered up that fact.
Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing Reform UK party and a newly-elected MP, faced criticism too after he leant into the suggestion of an establishment cover-up.
Speaking at a Downing Street press conference Thursday, the new U.K. prime minister warned social media firms the law must be upheld.
“Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them: violent disorder was clearly whipped up online,” Starmer said. “That is also a crime. It is happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”
Pressed by journalists whether he will act if social media firms fail to take action against disinformation, Starmer offered no details and said only that there is a “balance to be struck.”
But Starmer, who has been in office as Labour prime minister for less than a month, declined to get into a direct slanging match with Farage.
“I’m not going to stand here and cast judgment on what others have been saying,” he said when pressed on the Reform UK leader’s comments.
Questioned again, Starmer said only that “anybody who says or does anything that impedes [families of the victims’] ability to get the justice that they deserve, cannot claim to be acting in their best interests.”
Ahead of the first bout of disorder, Farage questioned why the incident in Southport was not being treated as “terror-related” and suggested the “truth” about the identity of the suspect was being “withheld from us.” He has since rejected comparisons with the far-right, and said it is “quite legitimate to ask questions.”
Starmer elsewhere used the press conference to announce that his government is setting up a new police task force to take on rioters who travel across the U.K. to wreak havoc.
Britain, he said, is “a country that will not allow understandable fear to curdle into division and hate in our communities, and that will not permit under any circumstances a breakdown in law and order on our streets.”
