Although the response to the Manchester bombing had been more intense than those to the attacks on London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Westminster, the pattern had been the same: instant confusion, then the backlash. Martin Innes, director of the Crime and Security Research Institute at Cardiff University, said both of those periods held risks.
He referenced a false rumour that came within minutes of the Manchester bombing about a supposed gunman outside a hospital, which led to ambulance crews and firemen staying out of the Arena. “These kind of rumours are not peripheral, they are not inconsequential, they make a real difference,” he said.
When the confusion dies down, it is followed by attempts to analyse the events. This can be helpful – such as the inevitable amusing memes that follow attacks, celebrating the British stiff upper lip. One picture of a man running away from the London Bridge attack while carefully holding a pint was shared on social media more than 300,000 times.
More worrying, however, were the attempts to spread discord and anger in society, many of which come from Russia or the United States, which makes it very hard for the police to manage them. “The local reaction to these attacks is being inflected and amplified by geopolitical interests,” he said.
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