An expert in criminology and online extremism believes that the violent demonstrations currently gripping Britain are the product of people feeling threatened by a maelstrom of issues projected onto the "other".
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00:00A criminology expert says social media plays a role in the recent violent riots sweeping
00:07across the UK, but the real instigator is a quote latent issue.
00:12Stephanie Alice Baker from City University of London says growing unrest could be perceived
00:17to incite social tensions.
00:20You have emerging feelings of nationalism, a sense that people are being left behind,
00:28a sense that people's freedoms are being denied, the sovereignty of the nation is
00:34at stake and a lot of this really coincides with a rise of immigration and a cost of living
00:41crisis.
00:42So people have these first hand experiences of grievances and a lot of these negative
00:49feelings are projected onto another.
00:51The recent deaths of three girls sent more than a dozen UK cities into xenophobic protest.
00:57This is what we commonly see for any of us who study crowd behaviour, it's that there
01:02is always a tipping point where people feel emboldened and unable to act on those feelings
01:08and it's typically when they see others doing the same thing.
01:11Britain has been battling week long violence as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic
01:17slogans clashed with police.
01:20The disturbances have been fuelled by right wing activists spreading social media misinformation
01:25about the deadly knife attack.