Nigel Farage has been accused of spreading fake news by Elon Musk’s X chatbot after he shared a video claiming to show “illegal migrants invading our country.”
On Sunday, the Reform UK leader posted a clip on X that showed a number of people on a small boat wearing life jackets.
Captioning the clip, Farage wrote: “Illegal migrants can be heard shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they invade our country.
“These men will now be free to roam our streets thanks to Keir Starmer.
“This is a national security emergency.”
But a number of people reckoned something didn’t quite add up about the clip, with some thinking it was actually footage from 2015 of migrants in a boat in the Aegean sea.
When one person asked Grok, the AI chatbot on X, whether this was indeed the case, it replied: “Yes, based on visual analysis and historical reports (e.g., NDTV 2015 article), the video matches footage from the 2015 migrant crisis in the Aegean Sea, showing refugees shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ upon reaching Greece. It’s not current UK events.”
Many have since accused Farage of lying and ‘inciting racial hatred’ by sharing the clip.
One person wrote: “The film shows a dinghy approaching the Greek island of Lesbos ten years ago. Farage is not only attempting to incite racial hatred but he is using deliberate misinformation to do it. How is this not unlawful?”
A second said: “Another day, another Farage, race-baiting lie. A clip from ten years ago. The only national security risk here is Reform. They’re being allowed to freely lie and manipulate the public. Zero accountability.”
A third wrote: “This would appear to be an example of incitement by @Nigel_Farage. The video was reportedly taken in 2015, and shows migrants arriving in Greece, not Britain. Given their ordeal, they marked their arrival by calling out; ‘God is greatest’. What exactly is Nigel’s game?”