By Josh Birrell

The United Kingdom is currently falling victim to social media content portraying the country, and its capital city of London as a space of decline. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, manipulated video footage, and data misrepresentation are all employed to cultivate conspirational thinking and political polarisation.

I seek to highlight that this wave of content constitutes a Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) operation aimed eroding the credibility of London, and amplified by algorithmically mediated social media platforms such as TikTok.

I underline that combatting this is incredibly difficult and requires challenging established norms surrounding FIMI operations. This includes contextualising content both within an uneven and mistrusting domestic economy, and a wider neoliberal order which rewards hypercompetition and self-entrepreneurialism. This leads to a multiplicity of actors contributing to the production and consumption of FIMI content, who are often in positions of economic insecurity.

Josh graduated from the MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge and has a career background in the Financial Services sector. Born and raised in Preston, Lancashire, his research interests intersect Neoliberalism, Digital Platforms and Disinformation in the United Kingdom. Josh currently works in the FinTech industry.