While researching a blog on the rise of Reform I joined several Reform/Nigel Farage web forums and Facebook groups.
What I found was a tidal wave of bad fan art.
Not since the peak of Donald Trump MAGAmania has there been so much crazy art created (links are at the bottom of the blog)
Reform supporters are incredibly fond of AI generated patriotic art, some of it crossing a line into xenophobia and worse.
They like lions:
And they love Crusaders, even of the armour is always historically inaccurate. With the occasional pterodactyl
So why does it matter if most of these images are AI generated? Or that Reform groups on line are swamped with emotive button pushing content?
This week there was a a tragic incident in Southport, in which 3 children died, and others are still in hospital. Shortly after the tragedy a small number of non-UK social media accounts and “news” websites starting sharing a story that the attacker was a young Muslim who had recently come to the uK and was known to MI5.
None of these stories were true, and were all invented to boost interactions with those websites/social media accounts for monetisation. The original creator was almost certainly AI. The money they made was very small
Quickly social media accounts with large followings shared and amplified these stories: Darren Grimes from GBNews, Laurence Fox, Tommy Robinson, Andrew Tate.
These stories, with their “celebrity” endorsements flooded onto social media groups, and were widely shared by people with right wing views. Theses stories were believed uncritically and dominated pro-Reform and Nigel Farage groups. Social media alogrithims pushed these stories into the feeds of people who they had identified as likely to engage with button pushing divisive content.
A small number of people from violent right wing groups organised a protest in Southport for that evening. This was shared on social media and attracted mostly people looking for trouble. The consequences were predictable
Similar protests are planned around the country for coming days by people who want to use this tragedy to “take their country back”. Last nights protest in Sunderland quickly deteriorated into violence.
This goes to show that it is incredibly easy to share fake divisive content, and some people are very easily fooled when that content matches their prejudices. And some who don’t care if it is true or not as long as there is warm lager, cheap gack and a punch up
Of course wherever there is bad AI art there parodies, but the ones taking the mick are easy to spot…
