However, Starmer also singled out the availability of violent online content in inspiring lone killers. “There are also bigger questions, questions such as how we protect our children from the tidal wave of violence freely available online,” he said.
“Because you can’t tell me that the material this individual viewed before committing these murders should be accessible on mainstream social media platforms, but with just a few clicks, people can watch video after horrific video — videos that, in some cases, are never taken down. That cannot be right.”
He linked this phenomenon to the rise of a new kind of terrorist threat posed by “loners, misfits” and “young men in their bedroom,” echoing recent warnings by the U.K.’s top intelligence chief.
“Terrorism has changed,” Starmer said. “In the past, the predominant threat was highly organized groups with clear political intelligence groups like Al Qaeda.”
“That threat, of course, remains, but now alongside that, we also see acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety, sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, but fixated on that extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake.”
The Southport attack, as well as subsequent riots that spread across Britain over the summer, have drawn fresh scrutiny of social media platforms and how they police, and promote, content.
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