UK anti-immigration social media accounts traced to Sri Lanka and Vietnam
Key takeaways
- Other videos show reporters discussing "the overwhelming scale of mass immigration" and asking viewers if they miss "the Britain we used to know".
- But it is not clear whether the creator of the videos knows the UK at all: the account is really run by someone based in Sri Lanka.
- One expert told the BBC that research shows people are worse at detecting AI fakes than they think, and the more AI content they see, the more likely they are to distrust authentic material.
Why this matters: a developing story that could shape the day's news cycle.
Marianna Spring Social media investigations correspondent BBCThe AI-generated videos present a vision of the UK in decline and sometimes taken over by Muslims The "Great British People" Facebook page, which purports to be from Yorkshire, has had 1.3 million views for its latest video of an elderly white British man crying about his pension. Other videos show reporters discussing "the overwhelming scale of mass immigration" and asking viewers if they miss "the Britain we used to know".
But it is not clear whether the creator of the videos knows the UK at all: the account is really run by someone based in Sri Lanka.
It is one of dozens of interconnected Facebook and Instagram accounts identified by BBC Panorama and the Top Comment podcast, which create and share anti-immigration AI-generated posts about the UK to large audiences - but the creators are often located hundreds or thousands of miles away.