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Musk’s X helps Tommy Robinson rack up 434 million views during UK riots

How X helped fan the flames of disorder by amplifying disinformation and hate spread by known bad actors like Tommy Robinson

New analysis shows that Tommy Robinson’s posts on X have been viewed over 434 million times since the outbreak of far-right riots targeting Muslims and migrants in the UK – and that Musk’s platform has shown fact-checks on just one of Robinson’s posts in that time.

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Convicted criminal Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been instrumental in stoking hatred of Muslims since the Southport attack on 29 July, repeatedly amassing millions of views on posts that promote false claims or conspiracies.

Robinson receiving five times as many views on X since Southport stabbings

Analysis of Robinson’s posts between the Southport stabbings on 29 July and 5 August shows that he is receiving an average of 54.3 million views on X every day.

This represents nearly five times the 11.1 million daily views he was receiving prior to the Southport stabbings and subsequent riots targeting Muslims and migrants. This is based on a comparison with figures shared by Robinson himself on 25 July using X’s own tools, showing how many views he had received over the previous 30-day period.

It shows that Robinson has successfully exploited X to spread his divisive messages more widely and more frequently at a time of crisis.

X has profited from amplifying extreme voices like Tommy Robinson

Tommy Robinson’s newfound ability to reach tens of millions of daily views on X is a consequence of Elon Musk’s deliberate strategy of welcoming extreme voices back to the platform to get clicks and boost revenue.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate previously found that Musk’s decision to reinstate previously banned users like Tommy Robinson to X could earn the platform up to $19 million a year in ad revenue as a result of the extra views they generate.[i]

In common with many other extreme accounts on the platform, Robinson’s account has been granted a verified ‘blue tick’, giving his account the appearance of greater credibility and enabling his account to benefit from prioritized ranking in the algorithm.[ii]

X’s algorithm is designed to reward controversial content that gets views and engagement, such as likes and comments. While X currently appears to be preventing ads from being shown next to Tommy Robinson’s content at present, our analysis shows the platform’s algorithm is helping his false and hateful content reach tens of millions of views every day.

Musk’s user-generated fact-checks are not working

Despite his instrumental role in spreading disinformation, just one of Robinson’s 679 posts since the Southport stabbings display a fact-check, equivalent to 0.1% of his posts.

X operates a system of user-generated fact-checks called Community Notes, which are written and rated by users. Any user can sign up to Community Notes, allowing them to propose and rate notes before they get displayed on posts. Only notes that have been rated ‘helpful’ by people with “diverse perspectives” will be displayed to all X users.[iii]

During the UK riots, Elon Musk claimed that Community Notes are “a clear and immediate way to refute anything false” posted to X, adding “the same is not true for legacy media who lie relentlessly”.[iv]

However, none of Robinson’s posts targeting Muslims or migrants were subject to Community Notes. Instead, just one of his posts carried a Community Note pointing out that what Robinson claimed to be a burning police station was in fact a Citizen’s Advice Bureau next to a police office.[v]

A further three of Robinson’s post quoted other posts that featured Community Notes.[vi]

Robinson’s content is on track to be viewed 6 billion times in a year

In the course of our analysis, we found that Robinson regularly shares statistics from tools that X offers its premium users to help them track growth in followers, views, likes and other metrics.

The most recent statistics shared by Robinson show that his content received 1.5 billion views in the 90 days between 9 May and 6 August 2024.[vii] Robinson has shared similar statistics on at least six occasions dating back to 24 May this year, and on every occasion has reported a rise in the total daily views that his content receives.

It raises the prospect that without intervention from Musk’s platform, Robinson could be set to receive as many as 6 billion views on his content in the year from 9 May 2024.

Case Study: 13 million views for Robinson’s posts linking Southport to Muslims

The day after the Southport attack which took the lives of three young girls, Robinson repeatedly linked the attack to the Muslim community in posts to X that amassed a total of 13 million views.

In one video posted on 30 July, Robinson claimed the police were lying about the identity of the attacker’s identity, saying “so we’re hearing now it’s mental health… It’s impossible to believe what they say because they lie, fact, they totally lie. There was a grandma who was beheaded in her garden in London whilst a man screamed ‘allah akbar’ – mental health.”[viii] The video amassed 1.4 million views and did not display a fact-check.

In another post from the same day, Robinson called on his supporters to “get there and show your support”, comparing riots to “hundreds of Muslims [who] took to the police station within 24hrs” to protest mistreatment of a man at Manchester Airport.[ix]

Case Study: False claims about Stoke stabbing amassed 4.8 million views

On 3 August, Robinson was instrumental in spreading false claims that far-right protestors “have been stabbed by Muslims in Stoke”, adding that there were also “reports of axes and hammers used to attack the public.”[x] The post received 2.7 million views but does not display a fact-check.

In a video posted to X later the same day, Robinson claimed the media was failing to report on “innocent English people being hunted down, beaten with hammers and stabbed.” Robinson ends the video by praising Elon Musk’s platform, saying “if it wasn’t for X, you wouldn’t even know about it.”[xi] This post received an additional 674,000 views and does not display a fact-check.

When fact-checkers and journalists investigated the supposed incident, Staffordshire Police stated that two men had been hit with a thrown object, but that no stabbings had been reported and “their injuries are not believed to be serious”.[xii]

Methodology

Researchers manually collected Tommy Robinson’s posts to X between the dates of 29 August when the Southport stabbings occurred and 5 August. For each post, we logged details of when the post was made, what topics it concerned, and whether or not it displayed a Community Note.

Separately, we searched for and recorded six examples of Robinson sharing key statistics about the performance of his account and content on X. We used these figures as a basis for comparing his daily average views before and after the Southport stabbings occurred.

CCDH CEO & Founder Imran Ahmed said:

“Everyone in their right mind wants to see an immediate end to the senseless violence which has spread like wildfire across the UK since the tragic events in Southport.

Instead, platforms like X have fanned the flames of disorder by amplifying disinformation and hate spread by known bad actors like Tommy Robinson and, worse still, the platform’s owner Elon Musk.

It’s not enough to sit on our hands and await the full implementation of the Online Safety Act. Government must demand more from platforms to enforce their rules, use break-glass protocols to proactively respond to disinformation, and swiftly amend the OSA to ensure crises like this never happen again.

We have a serious issue with transparency on social media platforms. Their data is hard to access, may be prohibitively expensive, and some have even gone so far as to threaten or sue researchers for conducting research. The Government could and should act immediately to set strong mandatory data access requirements on these platforms, so academics and researchers can gather data to warn us of potential violence and threats to our national security.”

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