A series of internal emails from the UK government has revealed an aggressive push to monitor and suppress online posts deemed “concerning,” sparking alarm over creeping censorship under the banner of combating misinformation and community unrest.
The documents, shared by US Rep. Jim Jordan, paint a picture of state officials flagging lawful speech, pressuring tech companies to remove content, and targeting what they described as “concerning narratives about the police and a ‘two-tier’ system.”
One of the most widely circulated videos under scrutiny featured a street celebration in Manchester where participants waved Pakistani flags. Captioned “It looks like Islamabad but it’s Manchester,” the video, posted by Radio Genoa on X, amassed over 14 million views.
Government emails described this kind of footage as misleading or dangerous, with one note labeling it an example of content that is “shared out of context in order to incite fear of the Muslim community.”
Another email, dated August 3, 2024, acknowledged “significant volumes of anti-immigrant content” online and pointed to “concerning narratives about the police and a ‘two-tier’ system that we are seeing across the online environment.”
The correspondence shows government officials not only monitoring speech but actively collaborating with platforms to address posts, even ones not violating the law or even the platform’s terms of service.
Officials were asking for direct intervention. One message requested clarity from platforms about “what content you are seeing across your platform; and b) any measures you have taken in response.” A follow-up email urged platforms to act quickly, stating, “We’d be grateful if you could come back to us on those two points as soon as you are able to.”
In one particularly troubling exchange dated August 4, government officials flagged a video showing someone scrolling through a freedom of information request that referred to asylum seekers as “undocumented fighting age males.”
Hellbound and Down 