Viral infection: Foreign states are sowing fear and division on our streets via social media

During his brief time at the centre of the Trump administration, Elon Musk boasted about putting the United States’ international development agency, USAID, “into the woodchipper” as part of his drive for government “efficiencies”. 

Now officially the world’s first trillionaire after his company SpaceX was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, Musk’s obscene wealth is comparable to the GDP of the world’s richest countries and far exceeds that of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where close to 200 people have died during the recent Ebola outbreak and hundreds more have been infected.

According to those in the know, the response to this emerging health catastrophe has been undermined by the gutting of USAID. Nicholas Emrich, a former administrator for global health at USAID, said the “reckless dismantling” of the agency had made the world more vulnerable to outbreaks of deadly disease. Indeed, those on the ground in the DRC, the second largest country in Africa, say cutbacks may have made the outbreak more difficult to spot and slowed down the initial response. 

Cutting international aid budgets – as the UK has also done – make us all less safe. While Ebola’s high mortality rate (around 50 per of those who catch the virus will die) means it is unlikely to be the cause of the next pan-global public health crisis, it is in all our interests to limit the spread of illness and the risk of a ‘Disease X’ emerging which has genuine pandemic potential.

That some of the cutbacks at USAID may have resulted from decisions taken by the world’s richest man, someone seemingly more concerned with exploring new worlds than improving life on this one, is particularly hard to accept. Musk’s wealth and his ownership of X (formerly Twitter) have given him an outsized influence, his algorithms helping elevate the anti-immigration rhetoric of Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe as his AI chatbots create sexualised images of women and children. 

Another of Musk’s favourites, Tommy Robinson, was briefly detained by police at Heathrow recently after flying back to the UK from Russia via Turkey. It followed a week in which Robinson, who has two million followers on X, posted repeatedly about the violence in Northern Ireland following an attempted murder in Belfast, footage of which was widely shared on social media. Separately, Robinson was among those who shared disinformation on social media about an arson attack on a property owned by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, according to a BBC Panorama investigation. Two men were this month found guilty of a series of arson attacks targeting the PM which have been linked to the Russian state.

According to the BBC, Russian operatives created a far-right group called Direct Action which sought to appear British while attempting to sow division, exploiting the unrest that followed the murder of three young girls in Southport, branding Starmer a traitor and offering money to those willing to paint Islamophobic graffiti, all while being promoted online by Robinson whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. 

Foreign actors seeking to influence our politics have been a problem for some time. As far back as the 2014 independence referendum there was evidence Russian and Iranian bots were attempting to influence the result. But things have gone up a notch recently. 

Following the Holyrood election, the French government agency Viginum said it had found evidence an Israeli firm spread misinformation about SNP leader John Swinney in the run-up to the vote. Hundreds of fake social media accounts were allegedly used to target Swinney and the SNP in “digital interference operations”. The firm, BlackCore, is said to have targeted figures critical of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, orchestrating a smear campaign which saw hundreds of comments added under Swinney’s social media posts. 

“Urgent steps need to be taken to counter the threat of foreign online political interference and ensure that our democratic processes are not undermined,” Swinney said in response. “That begins with the UK Government, which has responsibility for national security, making dealing with hostile state online interference a far higher priority.”

The UK Government has moved – belatedly – to address the malign influence of social media on young people, taking the nuclear option of banning apps such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat for under-16s. It remains to be seen how effective this move will be; in Australia a similar ban introduced last year has run into problems, with the majority of young people who had social media accounts before, continuing to have them. 

Whether it works or not the ban won’t address the problem of fully-grown adults being fed a diet of conspiracy and disinformation online. It may not be the next Disease X but it’s a viral contagion we ought to take seriously.