A viral video circulating on social media shows a large group of men gathered atop the iconic White Cliffs of Dover. They are waving Union Jack flags and chanting slogans like “Protect our country! Protect our people! We will not be moved! Secure our border!” Their collective voice is one of palpable frustration.

This video has amassed thousands of views and sparked a wave of angry reactions online.

In another widely viewed clip, a woman in her 30s vents her anger over what she claims is Sadiq Khan’s plan to construct 40,000 homes in London exclusively for Muslims, supposedly so they can be close to mosques and halal shops. “I’m f*****g fuming. Am I hearing right?” she exclaims.

Other videos circulate similar unfounded claims, such as Keir Starmer allegedly planning to implement Sharia law, or that the Prime Minister has resigned. One post, featuring an image of migrants on a crowded boat with melancholic music and a caption urging viewers to share if they want the UK to prioritize its own citizens over foreigners, garnered over 50,000 views.

These posts are appearing on platforms like X, YouTube, and Instagram, and originate from Facebook pages with names like Heart Of British, Proper British Pride, and Together For Britain. Some even mimic the names of legitimate groups, yet they are all entirely fake.

These misleading and AI-generated pieces of content, known in some circles as “slop,” hit a sensitive spot in our increasingly vulnerable society. They spread racist and anti-immigrant misinformation, fueling unrest, and crucially, none of this content is authentically British.

Because these accounts – along with hundreds of others with supposedly patriotic names – are run from Sri Lanka by a young influencer called Geeth Sooriyapura, who uses them to make money from online advertising revenues.

And Sooriyapura, in turn, is just one of the small army of global content providers who are stoking fury and meddling in other societies thousands of miles away, while hiding behind the anonymity of social media.

An AI video going viral online showing huge crowd of men stand on top of the White Cliffs of Dover, waving Union Jacks, shouting in unison: ‘Protect our country! Protect our people! We will not be moved! Secure our border!’

One fake image shows Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan in jail. The AI pictures are being made by foreign trolls in order to get rich 

But hopefully not for much longer. Because, finally, after endless pleas for greater transparency for its users, X has just launched a feature in which every account displays the country or region it is based in, as well as when it was created and how many times its username has been changed.

‘This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square,’ said Nikita Bier, X’s head of product.

X is the first of the big social media platforms to bring in this seismic change – others are likely to follow – and ever since, users have been gleefully poring over ‘country of origin’ details and exclaiming loudly and angrily.

Because there have been some big revelations – and not just here in Britain.

Let’s start in America, where it turns out many of the seemingly endless accounts projecting themselves as patriotic ‘Americans’ and supporting President Trump and his Maga movement are, in fact, not American at all.

Both Maga Nation, which has nearly 400,000 followers and posts multiple times a day, and the similarly named MagaNationX, which boasts the rather unlettered slogan, ‘Patriot Voice For We The People’, have been traced to Eastern Europe.

Then there is ULTRAMAGATRUMP2028, which claims to hail from Washington DC but turns out to be based in Africa. Dark Maga, which presents as an ultra-conservative voice, is posting from Thailand; MAGA Scope, with more than 51,000 followers, operates from Nigeria; and TRUMP_ARMY_ , with more than half a million followers, hails from India.

The fallout is also on the Left where an account run by Proud Democrat ‘Ron Smith’, who claims to be a MAGA Hunter, has been traced to Kenya.

Pictured: an AI generated image showing a fake protest outside parliament calling for a General Election

One post claimed Sadiq Khan has a ‘plan’ to build 40,000 houses in London, just for Muslims, so that they can always be near mosques and halal food shops

Suddenly, we also know that accounts sharing harrowing videos of the war in Gaza – and, crucially, seeking donations – are actually based in Indonesia.

Alleged ‘survivors from northern Gaza’ are posting from Malaysia. A ‘father of six in a displacement camp’ is a user from Bangladesh. And one user claiming to be ‘a witness from Rafah’ is making it all up from Afghanistan.

Worryingly, it even turns out that various accounts posing as IDF soldiers are users in London. ‘Yasmine.muhamsd,’ who describes herself as ‘a mother in Gaza struggling to survive’ and pleads for donations for her hungry baby – is in India. She deleted the account in a hurry when she was exposed.

Some have stolen real identities. The fake Mahmoud Salma, operating from the UK, claims to be a Palestinian father trying to raise his two daughters in Gaza under constant Israeli bombardment. He also asked for donations, by impersonating the real Salma family – who have their own genuine account.

We could fill this whole newspaper with all the fake accounts spreading disinformation here in the UK – stirring the pot from overseas.

Reform Party UK Exposed, an account boasting nearly 70,000 followers and posting dozens of anti-Reform missives a day, comes from America.

Several accounts in favour of Scottish independence – including one called Ewan McGregor and claiming to be from Dundee – are posting from Iran.

Even Collingwood, one of the UK’s most influential, highbrow, Right-wing accounts, with 67,000 followers, appears to have links to Russia.

Meanwhile, the hugely popular Yookay Aesthetics, with 51,000 followers, which claims to hail from Bradford, is based in South America. And the now-deleted ReformWatford – with the tagline, ‘we can’t go on like this’ – posted from Nigeria.

Another post falsely claimed that Starmer had resigned and Nigel Farage had launched a no confidence vote 

As the dust settles, the big question is, of course, why it has taken X so long to take action?

Ever since Elon Musk took over the platform in 2022, the site has experienced a surge in anti-Semitism, racism, hate speech and AI slop.

Musk himself has unwittingly promoted some fake accounts.

Inevitable West, which started posting on X a year ago, claims to be a defender of Western values and identifies as a ‘British Patriot’, is reportedly a 31-year-old Indian former fruit juice salesman separately accused of masterminding a £550million Asian betting fraud.

And thanks to more than 30 retweets and comments by Musk, that account has more than 300,000 followers.

Yet it appears that while some of these accounts are politically motivated – to meddle, influence policy and agitate – many of these nefarious influencers are apparently just in it for the money.

Sooriyapura, who was exposed with his 100-plus fake accounts earlier this month by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, describes himself as a ‘Facebook Monetisation Expert’ and claims to have made at least £230,000 from this slop, mainly due to revenue from adverts shown as people watch his AI-generated videos.

In the UK, he says, he particularly targets elderly Brits ‘because they are the ones who don’t like immigrants’.

Posts such as the one above are AI ‘slop’ that touches a nerve in our increasingly fragile society, by spreading racist and anti-immigrant misinformation to whip up discontent. And, importantly, none of it is British

It seems to be working, given the expensive cars, big watches, five star hotels, luxury apartments and swimming pools he shows off on Instagram.

Sooriyapura also insists he does not encourage violence and is only interested in teaching people how to make money from social media. But that is rubbish.

This is external societal meddling on an extraordinary scale – and it’s deeply damaging.

We can all remember how, within minutes of news breaking of the monstrous Southport terrorist attack in July last year, when three little girls were fatally stabbed at a dance class, social media lit up with rumours about the attacker’s origin.

One X post claimed he was ‘alleged to be a Muslim immigrant’. The assertion was false but the post was viewed millions of times in the run up to riots that followed.

It came from an account called @EuropeanInvasion, which publishes anti-immigrant content and was later linked to individuals and operations based in the UAE and Turkey – purely to stir up trouble here.

Under existing law in England and Wales, it’s an offence to send threatening, abusive or offensive messages online.

But the provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023, which requires social media firms to immediately take down any dangerous and misleading content, will not come into effect until the end of the year.

Ever since Elon Musk took over X , formerly Twitter, in 2022 the site has experienced a surge in anti-Semitism, racism, hate speech and AI slop 

So until now, we’ve had to rely on the tech giants enforcing their own guidelines, which has not gone well. As one commentator said recently: ‘We’re living in the Wild West of slop – something has to change.’

Hopefully that process has started. The changes introduced by X’s Nikita Bier, are not perfect: the very determined are still hiding behind VPNs, or ‘virtual private networks’, which allow people to hide their location.

But commentators are hailing the beginning of a new era of transparency and predicting other social media providers will follow suit.

Let’s hope so but, in the meantime, we need to be vigilant.

So next time you get revved up by a post about the Reform Party, or immigration, or see a video of Sir Keir in prison, or kissing someone (other than his wife) in full Islamic dress or, well, doing pretty much anything other than making a hash of running the country, please check where the account originates. And if it’s any country other than ours, press ‘report’.