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The British government has prepared for terrorist incidents by pre-planning social media campaigns which are designed to appear to be a spontaneous public response to attacks, Middle East Eye has learned.

Hashtags are carefully tested before attacks happen, Instagram images selected, and "impromptu" street posters are printed.

In operations that contingency planners term "controlled spontaneity", politicians' statements, vigils and inter-faith events are also negotiated and planned in readiness for any terrorist attack.

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After an incident such as the London Bridge attack of 2017, above, emergency planners try to control the public response (AFP)
The campaigns have been deployed during every UK terrorist incident in recent years, including the London Bridge attack in June 2017 and the Finsbury Park mosque attack that took place two weeks later.

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Within hours of an incident, campaigns are swiftly organised, with I "heart" posters designed and distributed according to the location of the attack. Plans are also drawn up for people to hand out flowers at the scene of the crime, in apparently unprompted gestures of love and support.

The purpose of the operations, according to a number of people involved in their creation who spoke to MEE, is to shape public responses, encouraging individuals to focus on empathy for the victims and a sense of unity with strangers, rather than reacting with violence and anger.

Many of the operations are said to be modelled on extensive plans that were drawn up to channel public anger in the event of any attack at the 2012 London Olympics.

Some strategies had been devised in 2011, when social media platforms were aiding communication between protesters during the Arab Spring – and when a series of riots were erupting across English towns and cities that summer.

One senior figure involved in that contingency planning told MEE that the riots "absolutely terrified" the British government, and that Theresa May, who was then home secretary and is now prime minister, had been particularly shaken.

The measures drawn up in advance of the Olympics were intended to "corral the Princess Dianaesque grief" that was expected to emerge after any mass-casualty attack - a reference to the public mourning that followed the death of the royal in a car crash in 1997. This person describes those measures candidly as an attempt at "mind control".

Although there was no terrorist incident at the 2012 Olympics, variants of the plan are said to have been deployed in the wake of every attack in the UK since then.

Croydon
A riot police officer stands guard in front of a burning building during riots in Croydon, south London, in 2011 (AFP)
"The point I noticed change was the Olympics," said one veteran contingency planner in the UK. "The management of the secret, hidden emergency planning work behind the Olympics became the social control that we would fall back on if we had any terrorist attack, or if we had any disruption. It's: 'This is the hashtag we go to'. And we've never come back from those days.

"This job has changed significantly from planning for organic, people responses to tragedy, to being told: 'We would like the people to do that, how do you get them there?'"

"A lot of the public's responses are spontaneous, of course. But a lot are shaped. The [British] government doesn't want spontaneity: it wants controlled spontaneity."

'That's what we want'
Officials at the Home Office in particular are said to have been impressed by fans' support for Premier League footballer Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the pitch in March 2012, four months before the start of the London Olympics.

At subsequent matches, fans of many different clubs held up placards and banners bearing messages of support for the player.

Fabrice Muamba
Arsenal fans display an image of Fabrice Muamba in March 2012 after the footballer suffered a cardiac arrest while playing for Bolton (AFP)
MEE understands that during subsequent contingency planning meetings, Home Officials suggested that replicating such a response at the Olympics could assist the recovery process after any terrorist attack - and allow the Games to continue.

"They were saying: 'That's what we want. If something happens at the Olympics, we want you to make people respond like that," the planner said. "And then the people will want the Olympics to carry on."

A number of Western governments are understood to have exchanged information about how they use social media to shape public responses following terrorist attacks.

Examples of "controlled spontaneity" within the UK that MEE has identified include:

a media campaign that was swiftly deployed after British and American aid workers were beheaded by Islamic State militants in 2014.

the use of hashtags, posters and vigils after the London Bridge attacks of June 2017, in which eight people were murdered and almost 50 injured.

a Twitter, Facebook and mainstream media campaign that was employed later that month, shortly after a man drove his van into a group of people outside a mosque in north London, killing one person and injuring 10 others.

Although covert messaging developed as part of the Prevent programme is aimed at Muslims, particularly young men, plans for "controlled spontaneity" following a terrorist attack are targeted at the wider population.

The day after the London Bridge attack, a team of men arrived at the scene of the murders in an unmarked van.

They were admitted behind the police cordon, before plastering walls with posters bearing images of London and hashtags that were already circulating on Twitter, including #TurnToLove, #ForLondon and #LoveWillWin.

This practice, known in the UK as fly-posting, is a minor criminal offence, but police allowed the members of the fly-posting team behind their cordon and took no action. The men doing this work declined to tell journalists who they were, or where they were from.

When the cordon was eventually lifted and the public were able to return to the scene of the attacks, they found themselves surrounded by apparently impromptu signs of public defiance and unity.

The following day, a government official telephoned Southwark Council, the local authority for the area where the murders happened, a council official recalled. "He said: 'We're sending you a hundred imams.'"

➔ superframboisier - 14 Aug 2024
Je la nie pas cette réalité. Je pense juste qu'il y'a un monde entre d'un côté appeler a une déportation de masse, faire des représailles sur des gens qui n'ont rien à voir, et de l'autre appeler à des mesures de contrôle des flux migratoires, de blocage de l'immigration clandestine.

« Dans ce pays, dans 15 à 20 ans, les noirs domineront les blancs »

un jour on parlera de Napoléon sérieusement

➔ LimitedInc - 14 Aug 2024

Ce qui compte c'est la fascination pour les détails les plus sordides des histoires les plus abjectes, tant que des noirs ou des arabes sont impliqués.