To learn of the last minutes of Henry Nowak’s life would be shocking and distressing under any circumstances. The stabbed teenager begged officers for help, as they handcuffed him before realising their mistake. To watch those final moments, on the police body-cam footage released this week, is all the more immediate, and unbearable. The outrage is widely shared. But the way it has been weaponised is alarming. His family’s wish is for his legacy to be a renewed effort to reduce knife crime, not increased antagonism along racial and religious lines. Instead, the unscrupulous are using the power of the footage and the speed of social media to spread myths about “two-tier policing” and turn trauma into political mobilisation.
Rightly, Hampshire’s chief constable has apologised. Three of the officers involved are being investigated, while a fourth has left the force. Policies are being reviewed. Vickrum Digwa will serve at least 20 years for murder before being eligible for parole. Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have met with the victim’s family.
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Thankfully, the violence in Southampton on Tuesday has so far not been repeated. But rightwing agitation has not diminished. Comments from the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and Restore Britain’s Rupert Lowe were designed to inflame emotions rather than calm them. In a video released shortly after the police footage, Mr Farage called for “pure, cold rage”. Following several X posts about Henry Nowak by Elon Musk, on Thursday the US state department weighed in with claims of “ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing”, which it called “glaring symptoms of civilisational decline”.
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For the US government to trumpet conspiracist rhetoric of this kind was once inconceivable. No one should treat it as normal now. The UK, like other European countries, is used to thinking of interference in our democracies as coming from China, Russia or Iran. But with this stoking of racial paranoia, and pointed attacks on policing, Donald Trump’s administration and one of the world’s richest men have once again shown their own eagerness to promote grievance and instability.
The wider context is a US economy that is heavily reliant on a handful of companies and billionaires, including Mr Musk, whose most valuable commodity is human engagement, and whose products are engineered to maximise the time users spend with them by any means. While once big tech’s titans talked of bringing the world together, the competition for attention has led businesses to promote grievance and tribalism instead. Increasingly, their economic incentives have harmonised with the political playbook of Mr Trump and the global far right.
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People have always reacted emotionally to reports on violent murders. But instant access to shareable video, and the viral spread of clips and posts including the kinds of falsehoods that fuelled the riots in Southport, and forced two police officers into hiding this week after they were wrongly identified as involved in Henry Nowak’s death, means that reactions are more visceral, the pitch higher.
There are no simple legislative answers. Britain’s Online Safety Act is a start. But the EU’s Digital Services Act goes closer to the heart of the matter, requiring the largest platforms to confront systemic risks, from disinformation to the effects of algorithmic recommendations. The question is not only what platforms take down, but what they promote. Social media has changed political life. Regulating it effectively is imperative.
