It’s become a familiar pattern of events: a violent, terrifying attack unfolds, innocent people are killed, and social media is set alight with unfounded - and often incorrect - accusations about about the assailant's identity and what the motivation was.

Think back to the stabbing attacks in Sydney earlier this year, falsely blamed on a Jewish student, or even the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in July.

It’s the same with Monday’s attack on a children’s holiday dance and yoga session in Southport, England.

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As in all Ofcom's reports, Ofcom provides detail about different groups of children, highlighting age, socioeconomic background and gender wherever it is useful or possible to do so.

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On April 17, 2024, an account named StorieSpot posted images of a purported "cat's eye dazzle" flower in the Facebook group National Geographic Wild Planet. (The group, which has more than 1.4 million members, does not appear to have any official affiliation with National Geographic.) According to the pictures, the flower closely resembles a kitten's face.

The post read, "Amazing plants! Cat's eye dazzle." It received more than 80,000 likes and 36,000 shares, at the time of this writing.

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For 14 hours over the weekend, Sydney university student Ben Cohen was one of the most reviled men on the internet after he was falsely accused of being the knifeman who went on a stabbing rampage in a Sydney shopping centre, killing six people.

The ABC has pieced together how anti-semitic and pro-Kremlin accounts turned Mr Cohen into an internet villain.

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Louise Bruder never forgets a face. Which is not only a handy skill at parties, but it has helped her carve out a career.

She has the fabulous job title of super-recogniser, and her work at UK digital ID firm Yoti involves comparing the photos on an identity document with an uploaded selfie, to determine if it is the same person.

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AI content farms are taking over the internet, and NewsGuard analysts track their spread. Read more about AI content farms, and how they are proliferating:

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