A cursory Google search for the headline would have quickly proved that it isn’t real. The Telegraph itself has since confirmed it did not publish such an article…reports Asian Lite News
Amid an ongoing feud with the government about unrest on the country’s streets, the billionaire X owner boosted, and then deleted, an entirely-manufactured news headline Thursday pushed by a far-right political party.
Musk shared a fake headline — purporting to be from the Telegraph newspaper — that said PM Keir Starmer is “considering building ’emergency detainment camps’ on the Falkland Islands” to house far-right rioters arrested in the country’s round of race riots.
A cursory Google search for the headline would have quickly proved that it isn’t real. The Telegraph itself has since confirmed it did not publish such an article.
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Musk shared the image posted by Ashlea Simon, the co-leader of Britain First. It’s a fringe far-right party in the UK known for its “invasions” of mosques and the time its senior figures have spent in jail for religiously aggravated harassment.
Though Musk deleted the tweet within an hour, he is yet to acknowledge the move. According to one UK journalist, the tweet was seen by almost two million people before it was deleted.
Simon’s initial tweet has since been hit with a “community note” — one of Musk’s X innovations that allow users to propose context to viral tweets — stating that the story isn’t real.
The social media boss has been locked in a battle with the government this week over the spread of misinformation on his platform and his own tweets as violence broke out in the UK — including his claim that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain.
The Telegraph said on Thursday it had never published the article in question. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Telegraph Media Group said: “This is a fabricated headline for an article that does not exist. We notified relevant platforms and requested that the post be taken down.”
In a post on X, the newspaper said it was “aware of an image circulating on X which purports to be a Telegraph article about ‘emergency detainment camps’. No such article has ever been published by the Telegraph.”
Musk has not apologised for sharing the fake report, but has continued to share material criticising the UK government and law enforcement authorities’ responses to the riots.
On Thursday, Musk shared a Sky News interview in which Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions in England and Wales, said police officers were scouring social media for material inciting racial hatred. “This is actually happening,” Musk said. In a separate post referring to the same clip, Musk called Parkinson “The Woke Stasi”.
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