A judge in the United Kingdom has put another online journalist in jail for three years over a post that was found to encourage people to riot. The UK is actively charging citizens for sharing posts that are deemed to be "inciting racial hatred" while mass migration protests persist.
Carer Wayne O'Rourke, 35, who had more than 90,000 followers on X and was earning about $1,900 USD from it every month, posted in support of local protests against the Labour government’s immigration policies, the Daily Mail reported. On July 29, O’Rourke posted about the deaths of three children at Taylor Swift dance class in Southport and said it was a terrorist attack instigated by a Muslim.
The poster was incorrect about the man’s origin. The murderer was the son of Rwandan immigrants but born in the UK. In another post that reached 1.7 million viewers, he asked, "People of Southport where the f**k are you, get out on the street.” O’Rourke also posted pictures of a mosque in Liverpool and a burning car in Sunderland, to which he decided to add, “Sunderland, go on lads."
Referring to Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who critics call “Two-Tier Kier” because of his alleged duplicitous justice policies, O’Rourke wrote, "Starmer has basically said it us against them. Hold the line." Other examples of his supposedly seditious posts include the observations that 'Numbers are important' and his exhortation to "give them hell lads."
O'Rourke's X profile showed a picture of a bulldog wearing a Union Jack jacket: a depiction of patriotism that was well known to Britons who considered the bulldog a symbol of their nation. The judge found O’Rourke guilty of promulgating “racial hatred” with his posts.
Court officer Lucia Harrington accused the social media reporter of being “caught up in the media frenzy” and urged him to “reeducate himself,” according to the Daily Mail. Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight told O'Rourke: 'You were not caught up in what others were doing; you were instigating it.'
She added that the riots had had “the flames fanned by keyboard warriors like you." Another “keyboard warrior,” a 53-year-old woman, received a 15 month sentence for urging followers to “blow the mosque up.” Another man went to jail for posting “grossly offensive” emojis on Facebook.
