MPs are to debate claims that “foreign citizens are taking all our benefits” and immigrants are “trying to change UK into a Muslim country” on October 19. Any parliamentary petition signed by more than 100,000 people becomes eligible for debate. But are the 186,174 signatures collected genuine? The petition first appeared on a thread on Democracy Forum on August 26. When the poster first promoted the petition it had just 8 signatures. A day later, thanks to social media spamming, the number hit 1,000 signatures. As one poster reflected: “It’s now been shared on a few USA sites so hopefully will get a few more signatories”. By 7pm on August 27, the user who shared the petition wrote: “1400 is a reasonable number considering the petition is only 3 days old”. On September 3, a forum post confirmed that the petition had hit 8,000 signatures. But is that rise a product of online spam? Hours before that post, an individual in a 4chan discussion advocating the racist spamming of a pro-refugee petition wrote: “Guys 5,000 nearly signed this petition to end immigration to UK GET IN HERE, AND USE THE FROGS GENERATOR”. Screenshot of the post advocating the spam tactic [...]
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