Who’s behind the Facebook page posting hateful AI slop about the UK? The answer might lie in south Asia
An investigation reveals that young entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka and Pakistan are using AI to generate hateful content targeting the UK, posting it on Facebook through accounts posing as British patriots. The content includes anti-Muslim memes and promotion of the great replacement theory, all driven by financial gain.
Our research has uncovered young entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka and Pakistan using AI tools to make deeply objectionable content – and money
Niamh McIntyre is a senior reporter at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Scroll through any Facebook feed in Britain and, between the baby announcements and petty neighbourhood beefs, you’re likely to come across an account with a union jack profile picture and a vague, generic name like Britain Today.
These accounts – and there are hundreds, possibly thousands of them – present themselves as the work of British patriots. In one typical, AI-generated video, a middle-aged man claims his local cafe “has stopped serving pork, bacon and sausages just to avoid offending people”. Another post from the same account includes a sepia-tinted set of images of Victorian London, mourning a time when the city “was English, first-world and beautiful”. Alongside this type of reactionary nostalgia, it’s not unusual to see memes that call Islam a “cancer”, decry Muslims praying in public as an “invasion of the west” or promote the “great replacement theory” (which claims that white populations are being deliberately replaced by non-white immigrants).
Niamh McIntyre is a senior reporter at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
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