‘A polarisation engine’: how social media has created a ‘perfect storm’ for UK’s far-right riots

Algorithms that send the most outrageous comments viral and a chain reaction of anger and disinformation made the riots that followed the Southport killings inevitable

The 1996 Dunblane massacre and the outcry that followed are held up in the US as a textbook example of how an act of terror mobilised a country to demand effective gun regulation.

The atrocity, in which 16 children and their teacher were killed, provoked a wave of national revulsion that, within weeks, led to 750,000 people signing a petition demanding a change to the law. Within a year and a half, new legislation had outlawed the ownership of handguns.