JCWI’s Director of Communications, Ravishaan Rahel Muthiah, says politicians and social media are in a ‘loop of hate’.
In the wake of the racist riots of August 2024, the government Select Committee on Science, Innovation and Technology set up an Inquiry on ‘Social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms’. JCWI was invited to speak at the Inquiry on the role social media played in amplifying racist disinformation and helping far-right groups organise.
JCWI’s Director of Communications, Ravishaan Rahel Muthiah, shared damning evidence from research JCWI had conducted on the spread of racist disinformation online.
He said, “The environment that was created by politicians, social media companies, police, the Home Office and the far-right enabled these riots.”
Ravishaan Rahel Muthiah, Communications Director at JCWIThis viral spread of information, really does act like a virus would. We know from Covid-19 there are super spreaders, and these super spreaders worked to spread the virus of misinformation. Super spreaders such as Tommy Robinson, politicians, tabloid newspapers. And like a virus, this information mutates, it amplifies and it gets more dangerous… and this creates what we had in the riots – Extreme Information Disorder.
At its root, Ravishaan said the issue cannot be solved simply by regulating social media companies as much of the anti-migrant rhetoric that forms its backdrop originates in the speeches of mainstream politicians and media.
Other participants in the Inquiry also raised the issue of private platforms such as Telegram being used to organise for the riots and the fears of migrant communities and communities of colour at that time.
Full video of JCWI presenting at Inquiry on social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms.
