Re: It doesn't matter
He killed 3 girls and wounded several other people. This person had been referred to Prevent THREE times.
So what you're saying is that following the Dunblane shootings, the reasonable thing would have been to firebomb the local Scout hut where the perpetrator had been a leader?1
Whether or not the perpetrator was British or foreign, his acts did not justify setting fire to unrelated mosques, or hotels housing asylum seekers.
Let's not condone thug life. Misinformation is clearly a problem on social media. But it's really the tip of the iceberg. The problem is the manner in which the mainstream media have normalised "always on", rolling news in which they're happy to fart out any old nonsense because "something's happening and News 24 needs something to say, even if we don't know the facts yet". Characters like Tice and Farage ("just tossing some questions out there") have fully teed into this kneejerk, reactionary news cycle and and created a tinderbox culture. Back in the day, if the Southport killings hadn't been reported until the 6 o'clock news, or the next days newspapers, the reporting would have been more sober - but what we get is people shoehorning their pet conspiracy theories into a situation whilst the bodies are still lying in the street. It's grim.
I distinctly remember the Norwegian shootings by Breivik and how these sober "experts" were on the sofas of rolling news channels talking about the problems with Islamic extremism, and then it became apparent it wasn't an Islamic group, so they started talking about terror cells, was it militant greens? Then it became apparent it was a lone-wolf neo-Nazi and they all carried on talking guff like that's all they'd ever thought and yes, right-wing extremism is such an issue - never mind that half an hour ago they were confidently talking about radical Islam. How about you all shut the f- up until you know what the story is that you're trying to report?
Bo Burnham nailed it with "Welcome to the Internet".
Could I interest you in everything?
All of the time?
A little bit of everything
All of the time
Apathy's a tragedy
And boredom is a crime
Anything and everything
All of the time
The problem is that half the population are below average, and a fair proportion of them are fuckwits, which is why - prior to being regulated out of existence - predatory credit businesses like Brighthouse, Amigo Loans and Wonga.com were all incredibly profitable. And some proportion of them are highly susceptible to being confidently told that the foreigner wants your cookie by the person who is eating your cookie in front of you.
1. Albeit booted out well before the shootings for being a dreadful leader who had kids getting hypothermia on his camps. But let's not have facts get in the way. There was some connection, thus GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION! Also probably a child molestor, but the Scouts booted him out for being unsafe. And don't get me started on those so-called "paediatricians". Hiding in plain sight!