The Network

BBC journalist Marianna Spring mapped out a web of interconnected Facebook and Instagram accounts manufacturing anti-immigration content about the UK. The account operators are located in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Maldives, the United States, parts of Europe, and accounts linked to Iran and the UAE, according to Facebook's transparency tools, direct interviews, and social media forensics.

One account, "Great British People" on Facebook, claims to be from Yorkshire. Its latest video — an elderly white British man crying about his pension — has racked up 1.3 million views. The account is run by someone in Sri Lanka.

Some accounts recycled their entire identity. Pages that previously ran "Make America Great Again" content or "Life in the USA" material quietly pivoted to AI-generated British decline videos — chasing whatever drives engagement. These operators appear to be motivated by profit rather than ideology.

The "Decline Porn" Pipeline

One specific video shows a crowd of young men in balaclavas sliding into a garbage-strewn pool. The caption claims it's a taxpayer-funded water park in Croydon, south London. It is entirely fabricated.

The BBC tracked down the original creator — who goes by the handle RadialB — for the Top Comment podcast. He said he didn't expect copycats and didn't mean to be political, describing it as just content.

Dozens of copycat accounts have since produced identical material. Collectively they've generated millions of views across TikTok and Instagram Reels. The fake Croydon water park video has been weaponized by Iranian-linked accounts.

Who's Benefiting — And Who Commissioned Research

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has commissioned research into AI-generated images depicting London in decline, saying they damage the city's reputation internationally. Khan pointed to Russia and Iran as state backers of some accounts — though he acknowledged direct state involvement is difficult to verify.

A handful of the flagged accounts do post content sympathetic to Russian and Iranian government positions.

Professor Sander van der Linden, social psychologist at the University of Cambridge, called these networks a "new evolution of influence operations." He told the BBC that buying a UK-registered social media account is cheap and easy — so faking a British identity online costs next to nothing.

What the Coverage Overlooks

This operation works because the underlying anxieties are real. Immigration is a live political issue in the UK. Public services are under strain. When fake content maps onto genuine frustrations, it spreads faster. The fakers didn't invent the anger — they're monetizing it.

That doesn't make the disinformation okay. It makes it more dangerous. And it means debunking individual videos without addressing the real policy debates is a losing strategy.

Meta handed this data over through its own transparency tools. The platform gave journalists the information to identify these operations. That deserves credit — and scrutiny into why Meta isn't acting on it faster themselves.

The AI Detection Problem

Van der Linden told the BBC that people are worse at spotting AI fakes than they believe. The compounding problem: the more AI content someone consumes, the more likely they are to distrust real footage too.

The long-term damage isn't just that people believe the fake Croydon water park video. It's that they stop trusting any video. That corrodes democratic discourse and benefits everyone who wants citizens disengaged and cynical.

What This Means for Regular People

If you're in the UK, there's a decent chance content engineered in Sri Lanka or Vietnam shaped something you saw last week about your own country.

If you're in the US, the same networks already ran "MAGA" and "Life in the USA" content before switching lanes. They'll switch back.

The playbook is portable. The cost is low. The platforms have not shut these networks down — despite naming them and identifying their locations.