If you want to know how the internet works today just wait for a disaster.
It was true in the UK in 2011 when riots brought Twitter into the mainstream as the most important breaking news channel.
In 2024, after the Southport murders far-right disinformation was spread on Twitter and Facebook groups to fuel a wave of rioting.
So it goes again in 2025 when a man was arrested for injuring dozens of supporters at Liverpool’s Premier League trophy parade.
Within seconds of the event, the internet was rife with shock and then vary rapidly speculation.
It goes without saying an analysis of how the story played out online is secondary to the trauma of those injured or affected by the incident. It’s a relief that nobody was killed.
Like Southport, the incident gives a valuable lesson to public sector communicators on where communications needs to be in 2025. No doubt more detailed analysis will be produced in time.
Most attention has been given to Merseyside Police’s decision to identify the arrested man as 53, white and British. But an analysis of the online content in the first five hours of the major incident shows a high degree of co-ordination between not just Merseyside police, Liverpool City Council, North West Ambulance Service and Merseyside Fire and Rescue.
This is no surprise.
The public sector is used to working with partners in an emergency.
The timeline
On Monday May 26, Liverpool Football Club took part in a traditional open top bus parade through the city to show off the Premiership trophy. Roads are closed with a strong police, fire, ambulance and council presence.
This snapshot is by no means a comprehensive picture.
6.01pm a car strikes pedestrians and within minutes a man is arrested.
Within seconds footage starts circulating of the incident. We live in a post 9/11 world. The question ‘is it terrorism?’ quickly comes into play. In some people’s minds that question had already been answered.
While the world’s media have their eyes on Liverpool’s trophy parade the incident happened in a side street away from the parade route. The vacuum is quickly filled with video shot by people there for the trophy parade. It is quickly repurposed by those on the right of politics as well as traditional media such as Sky News, BBC and the Reach plc Liverpool Echo.
6.40pm Liverpool Echo’s Facebook page posts.
City centre live updates as emergency services cordon off area.
The page received 500 shares in 72 hours. Commenting was limited by the page admin, with more than 200 comments remaining focusing on the people affected not speculation about the religion of the culprit. The Liverpool Echo Facebook posts 13 updates in the next six hours and maintains coverage in the coming days.
6.43pm Turning Point UK the UK arm of a far right American body of the same name posts footage from the scene to Instagram with the caption: ‘A car has been driven into a car in Liverpool.’ Comments speculate that this was a Muslim.
6.46pm Facebook groups such as The Football Community are starting to share the news along with a Merseyside Police message confirming the incident. As time passes, there is isolated speculation that this may be the work of a Muslim but the comments on this page are self-policed by other members.
6.54pm Merseyside Police post simultaneously on X and Facebook to confirm there was an incident.
“We are currently dealing with reports of an RTC in Liverpool city centre. We were contacted at just after 6pm today, Mon 26 May, following reports a car had been in collision with a number of pedestrians on Water Street. The car stopped at the scene and a male detained.”
Within 48-hours the tweet has been viewed 1.9 million times with the Facebook post shared more than 700 times. To limit disinformation the police limited who could respond to the Facebook post.
6.55pm North West Ambulance Service also post on Facebook their statement as a link to their website.
The post was shared 95 times in 48 hours.
6.55pm The admin of the far right public figure Tommy Robinson X account without evidence speculate this is a terror attack.
Reports coming in of a suspected terror attack in Liverpool.
The account then posts four videos shot at the scene of the unfolding incident.
Views in 48-hours: 1.6 million views.
7.04pm Liverpool City Council post to Facebook.
We are currently liaising with Merseyside Police regarding an incident on Water Street in the city centre.
Updates to follow.
The post was shared seven times.
8.17pm Merseyside Police on X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook simultaneously post confirmation that there was an incident and that the man arrested was white and British.
We would ask people not to speculate on the circumstances surrounding tonight’s incident on Water Street in Liverpool city centre.
We can confirm the man arrested is a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area.
Extensive enquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances leading up to the collision.
We would ask people not to share distressing content online but to send the footage or information directly to us @MerPolCC or pass on information by calling 101 quoting log 784.
Information can also be passed on anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
The tweet 48-hours later has received 3.9 million views with the Facebook post shared 602 times.
8.54pm. Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Mayor Steve Rotheram’s Facebook page posted.
This was shared three times. In the coming days the office would be a strategically important link with 10 Downing Street and the Home Office.
10.51pm. A brief Merseyside Police press conference was live streamed on Facebook. Sympathy was given to those involved and basic details of the incident in Water Street were set out. Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims also thanked those who came to the aid of those injured. She announces that a 53-year-old man has been arrested who is white British and from the Liverpool area. The incident is not being treated as terrorism, she says.
Dave Kitchen from North West Ambulance Service, Nick Searle Merseyside Fire and Rescue Chief Fire Officer and Liverpool City Council Leader Cllr Liam Robinson also read prepared statements.
The Facebook post has been shared 1,200 times within 48-hours. After 200 comments commenting was switched off.
11.52pm Liverpool City Council post a short clip of their Leader’s comments at the press conference earlier.
The post was shared five times.
There were no posts to TikTok by public sector channels but there was strong coverage of the police statements to the channel by all UK news sources on the channel.
A recording of the Merseyside Police press conference was later shared to Instagram by the force with UK news sources also sharing police messages on this channel too.
Drawing a line in the sand
It’s clear that by identifying the race and nationality of the arrested man Merseyside Police looked to head off the rioting that took place of the Southport murders. This steer will have come from a high level and no doubt draws on previous experience.
What happened in the 2011 riots online has been researched in forensic detail in the landmark ‘Reading the Riots’ study published in The Guardian with research from Reading University. Back then, when misinformation circulated police shooting down rumour in realtime on Twitter halted the Twitter rumours.
Often, they would start again when people had seen them for the first time then shared them. Back then, official accounts had to damp down the fire multiple times by repeating the correct information. Respected voices on the internet also used reason to debunk several rumours.
However, the Liverpool incident shows that landscape in 2025 is a different.
Marcus Beard, who co-founded disinformation comms specialists Fennimore Harper, in an enlightening video on recent Keir Starmer disinformation on LinkedIn set out how things can now work.
Basically, a first piece of misinformation can be spread between a number of accounts and cause a stir, he says. That stir and the vacuum of information is filled by people who are looking to capitalise on the attention to monetise it or cause mischief.
So, did the intervention from Merseyside Police put a stop to rumour, speculation and disinformation?
Of course it didn’t.
8.21pm Former footballer Joey Barton tweeted that:
Everyone know what’s gone on.
When will it end.
After the picture became clearer he deleted these lines.
Within 48-hours the tweet receives 1 million views.
A rash of small accounts with limited followings also spread messages contrary to the Merseyside Police message.
9.40pm @AbsolutelkyFab11 for example tweets an image of a man in a car he claims is involved in the incident.
The driver from the Liverpool attack has been identified as Samir Al-Hyderi, a 53 years old naturalised British citizen.
Within 48 hours the tweet receives 100,000 views.
9.48pm on Instagram user @trueearth911 in a video claims a conspiracy theory.
2d
Breaking news: The malicious attack in LIVERPOOL.
10.27pm Former SAS member, TV personality and aspiring London Mayor Ant Middleton was one of many who added to the noise.
Do not believe anything that comes from police statements or the msm… Corruption runs deep and lessons were well and truly learnt from the not too distant past! God bless all the scousers and to all involved in this terrible ‘terror type’ incident, may strength be with you! You are in my prays this evening! Romans 8:26
Within 48-hours 58,000 see this tweet.
10.34pm a rash of accounts on Twitter spread disinformation that this WAS a terror attack. A two-year-old account called @abbyy_085 with 800 followers is one of many that repurposes footage.
Liverpool #UK
THIS IS A TERRORIST ATTACK.
Within 48-hours 107,000 people see this tweet.
11.03pm Merseyside Fire & Rescue add a statement to Facebook.
This was shared with more than 30 comments praising firefighter’s role.
The disinformation didn’t leap the fence and cause rioting
While figures on X, Instagram and TikTok and other places were energetic in trying to claim this was a terror attack their messages didn’t cut through. There was no disorder in Liverpool.
For example, a sample of Facebook groups I visited in Rotherham, Stoke-on-Trent and Tamworth didn not spread the disinformation. The Southport Facebook group was scrupulous in sharing screenshots of coverage of the Merseyside Police. Liverpool fan Facebook groups also did not bite on the speculation.
News of the identity of the car driver did not kill speculation.
Instead, the speculation got even more fevered. A review of TikTok and X includes speculation on:
- A police sniper.
- A man wearing latex gloves ripping off the number plate.
- Allegations that this was a false flag operation by freemasons.
- He was a police officer.
- That’s actually the suspect. He doesn’t look 53, does he?
What can public sector learn from this?
Firstly, that police giving out the race of the person arrested can defuse potential disorder. As others have said, I’m not sure what this says about Britain in 2025.
That the public sector when it works in co-ordination can amplify a message. Liverpool City Council, Merseyside Police, North West Ambulance Service and Merseyside Fire & Rescue comms teams should be satisfied that they performed in difficult circumstances. Their messages did not cut across or undermine each other.
That traditional media have a huge role to play in an emergency. The Liverpool Echo was giving rolling online coverage on the day and into the recovery phase. National media’s voice on Instagram and TikTok was significant not just as their own channel but for content to be screenshotted and shared.
Police set out the facts of the story, reporters reported them and then a small element of click chasers speculated on the facts. But without the facts and the reporting those voices would be the only voice.
A well-run press conference works. Here is the message. Everyone gets it at the same time. Mind, the incident has to be significant and the demand for information has to be there.
The information war is fought through video and screenshots of video. On the one hand, repurposed user-generated content is used and on the other live-streamed police press conferences are used. The quality of the video in an emergency doesn’t matter too much so long as the sound is okay.
TikTok and Instagram are places where a message is needed too. The audience for news is huge. It’s no longer one channel it’s multi-channel.
That limiting who can comment on Facebook in an emergency is shrewd. Both the public sector and the Liverpool Echo deployed this tactic. It kept the disinformation away from the coverage.
The surge for web searches lasted 24 hours. After that the mentions and posts tailed off.
That the disinformation doesn’t stop once it is debunked. In 2025, it just evolves.
Thankfully, nobody was injured and swift action stopped the situation from escalating. It will be fascianting reading more detailed accounts from the protagonists.
I think the real challenge will be with the next or future events. If the police don’t immediately release the nationality/ethnicity of the suspect then the conspiracists will start to say that they are holding back information because it will confirm what they believe to be true. Equally, if the suspect is a foriegn national, or from an ethnic minority, even if it is not a terrorist act, then does releasing that information enflame the situation?
(The Nicola Bulley case shows the flipside of the police choosing to make information public).
Liverpool benefitted from having strong local media and journalists on the scene at the time of the incident. A similar incident at a less prominent event (eg local carnival) in a small town where the local newspaper has been shut down or is produced at a regional office without any local presence would present a different challenge in terms of having legitimate sources of information.