>The intervention comes amid a sharp increase in the amount of social media posts spreading fake or misleading news that is fuelling false narratives about safety in the country, including claims that the capital has become dangerous and lawless.
>
>The government, police and cyber experts have already expressed alarm about the creeping spread of disinformation, but the City has now waded in amid fears the proliferation of negative social media is causing concern among overseas investors in Britain.
>
>At a recent Mansion House meeting, chief executives from some Arab banks raised their concerns about crime in London and questioned whether it was a safe and welcoming place for business, according to two sources present.
Equivalent-Ad-5781 on
About time.
Britain is still a great country, London a world leading city.
Don’t fall for the Trump style talking down of our own country – the people doing it don’t have workable solutions to the problems they amplify.
Some of the main culprits are Farage and the Telegraph.
AdPale1469 on
actually yes. This is good.
The “London is a shit hole thing” leans on Islamophobic rage baiting too.
A hell of a lot of people that have not been to London in decades have serious problems with what has done to the city.
the only thing they ever bitch about is congestion pricing (pretty small area) ULEZ (doesn’t effect many cars), and tolls to cross the river.
Meanwhile its my taxes that pay for the roads and i use the train so.
If you use the infrastructure you need to pay for it.
peterchekhov on
Good, about time our nation started to fight back against this bullshit in a coordinated way.
Important-Plane-9922 on
Good! So many brits join in on the made up shit. Don’t be traitors. Appreciate and support one of the few world class cities on the planet.
MonPantalon on
This issue was also mentioned by the chair of the Disinformation Diplomacy inquiry a few days ago (skip to 6:29):
> **Chair:** The impression that we got, and I hope I am speaking on behalf of the Committee, is that we were shocked to see the extent of organised disinformation in countries across the world. Our concern is to what extent it is happening in the UK and whether we are sufficiently alert to it. I will give you an example that was just in the Evening Standard—other members of the Committee will laugh at this, because, as a London MP, I keep wanging on about this—and that is the way London is maligned as a centre of violent crime.
> There has been an analysis of Reddit by Mark Hill, a lecturer at King’s College, who showed that there has been a year-on-year increase in the number of posts pushing the narrative that London is a dangerous and lawless city, despite the fact that there has been a reduction in violent crime in London. The number of posts contributing to that narrative has gone up from 874 in 2008 to 258,000 in 2024. When you look at them, you can see that the images are AI generated. There is a huge amount of suspicion as to what is going on, and there does seem to be some form of organised undermining of our capital city. Given that challenge, and what we have learned is happening in other countries, can we be confident that this is being countered in the UK?
RecognitionOld2763 on
I’d say when the vibe is against the statistics, it typically means there’re some structural factors distorting the numbers, making them no longer reflective of what people consider important. In the US this is what cost Biden his second term and also likely what will cost GOP its congress majority.
Meanwhile, Sadiq Khan still is pretending to not understand the term [grooming gangs](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1obc0fe/sadiq_khan_grooming_gang_coverup_exposed_by_new/). One should at least pretend they’re doing something besides saying “time to combat disinformation”, but I guess centrists in UK are already too used to donothingism and have forgotten there’s something called state capacity.
MCMLIXXIX on
Took their time making this decisions, we could really do with some kind of push back against this shit.
bars_and_plates on
Jeff Bezos built an empire on the mantra that if the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.
There’s definitely disinformation going on (there is on _everything_ now) but I’d wager that what is happening here in a roundabout sense is that murders and serious reported crime is down but the city as a whole feels far less safe because of levels of antisocial behaviour, casual shoplifting, no ticket offices / far fewer staff on the Tube, barely any visible police, etc.
If the murder rate halves then most people are never even going to notice because they themselves are still alive and they almost certainly didn’t know anyone that had been murdered anyway, it’s rare.
By contrast everyone feels this stuff constantly.
LongjumpingFee2042 on
Top three things I think of when planning a trip into London. In order
I am going to smell raw sewage at least a few times. Il have to make my peace with that now.
The tube will be hell, il try and visit at quieter times and I pray people around me have showered in the last few days at the very least.
I wonder if il blunder into a security threat again. (Wandered into a tube station that was shut down due to a “package”)
LongjumpingFee2042 on
They should see Birmingham, Swindon and Blackpool.
At least there are some perks to living in London.
11 commenti
>The intervention comes amid a sharp increase in the amount of social media posts spreading fake or misleading news that is fuelling false narratives about safety in the country, including claims that the capital has become dangerous and lawless.
>
>The government, police and cyber experts have already expressed alarm about the creeping spread of disinformation, but the City has now waded in amid fears the proliferation of negative social media is causing concern among overseas investors in Britain.
>
>At a recent Mansion House meeting, chief executives from some Arab banks raised their concerns about crime in London and questioned whether it was a safe and welcoming place for business, according to two sources present.
About time.
Britain is still a great country, London a world leading city.
Don’t fall for the Trump style talking down of our own country – the people doing it don’t have workable solutions to the problems they amplify.
Some of the main culprits are Farage and the Telegraph.
actually yes. This is good.
The “London is a shit hole thing” leans on Islamophobic rage baiting too.
A hell of a lot of people that have not been to London in decades have serious problems with what has done to the city.
the only thing they ever bitch about is congestion pricing (pretty small area) ULEZ (doesn’t effect many cars), and tolls to cross the river.
Meanwhile its my taxes that pay for the roads and i use the train so.
If you use the infrastructure you need to pay for it.
Good, about time our nation started to fight back against this bullshit in a coordinated way.
Good! So many brits join in on the made up shit. Don’t be traitors. Appreciate and support one of the few world class cities on the planet.
This issue was also mentioned by the chair of the Disinformation Diplomacy inquiry a few days ago (skip to 6:29):
https://youtu.be/VEqg8F3r8ZI
> **Chair:** The impression that we got, and I hope I am speaking on behalf of the Committee, is that we were shocked to see the extent of organised disinformation in countries across the world. Our concern is to what extent it is happening in the UK and whether we are sufficiently alert to it. I will give you an example that was just in the Evening Standard—other members of the Committee will laugh at this, because, as a London MP, I keep wanging on about this—and that is the way London is maligned as a centre of violent crime.
> There has been an analysis of Reddit by Mark Hill, a lecturer at King’s College, who showed that there has been a year-on-year increase in the number of posts pushing the narrative that London is a dangerous and lawless city, despite the fact that there has been a reduction in violent crime in London. The number of posts contributing to that narrative has gone up from 874 in 2008 to 258,000 in 2024. When you look at them, you can see that the images are AI generated. There is a huge amount of suspicion as to what is going on, and there does seem to be some form of organised undermining of our capital city. Given that challenge, and what we have learned is happening in other countries, can we be confident that this is being countered in the UK?
I’d say when the vibe is against the statistics, it typically means there’re some structural factors distorting the numbers, making them no longer reflective of what people consider important. In the US this is what cost Biden his second term and also likely what will cost GOP its congress majority.
Meanwhile, Sadiq Khan still is pretending to not understand the term [grooming gangs](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1obc0fe/sadiq_khan_grooming_gang_coverup_exposed_by_new/). One should at least pretend they’re doing something besides saying “time to combat disinformation”, but I guess centrists in UK are already too used to donothingism and have forgotten there’s something called state capacity.
Took their time making this decisions, we could really do with some kind of push back against this shit.
Jeff Bezos built an empire on the mantra that if the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.
There’s definitely disinformation going on (there is on _everything_ now) but I’d wager that what is happening here in a roundabout sense is that murders and serious reported crime is down but the city as a whole feels far less safe because of levels of antisocial behaviour, casual shoplifting, no ticket offices / far fewer staff on the Tube, barely any visible police, etc.
If the murder rate halves then most people are never even going to notice because they themselves are still alive and they almost certainly didn’t know anyone that had been murdered anyway, it’s rare.
By contrast everyone feels this stuff constantly.
Top three things I think of when planning a trip into London. In order
I am going to smell raw sewage at least a few times. Il have to make my peace with that now.
The tube will be hell, il try and visit at quieter times and I pray people around me have showered in the last few days at the very least.
I wonder if il blunder into a security threat again. (Wandered into a tube station that was shut down due to a “package”)
They should see Birmingham, Swindon and Blackpool.
At least there are some perks to living in London.