The slide into a bizarre world of believing conspiracy theories and voicing openly toxic and bigoted views took place slowly over the last decade whilst many of us were not able to fathom how quickly and extensively social media had taken charge of our lives. As the Founder and previous Director of Tell MAMA, which supports victims of anti-Muslim hate, the world that I know of today, as someone reaching his fifties, is virtually unrecognisable to the one in which I worked just a decade ago and where there was real hope that levels of racism, prejudice and intolerance were finally on a downward slope.

Today’s world is also a far cry from that in which I grew up. As a refugee from Amin’s Uganda in 1972, and having fled a second time from Africa in 1983 because of military instability in Kenya, I suffered at first hand the openly racist abuse meted out to Asians and African-Caribbean communities in Kent where I was schooled. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, that open racism existed, flourished and led to the murder of young black men such as Stephen Lawrence. Such open hatred impacted on many young men and women from BME communities, though the economic boom of that period helped to also temper some of the racist anger and bigotry. Anti-racism work, equality marches and work-based equal opportunity schemes seem to have turned the tide against division that many of us assumed would mean a country more at ease with its diversity.

Whilst the UK is in a far better place than the ’80s, the reality is that, as a country, we have slid backwards towards openly aggressive far-right marches rallying thousands of people, national political instability and a rising sense of mistrust which is acutely felt between BME communities and the two main parties. This, mixed with a recent economic crisis, has created the perfect storm for social insecurity and it is this insecurity that some have played upon in fomenting divisive and openly hostile views toward groups of people in our society. It is also within this environment of insecurity that people have sought comfort within narratives of division that blame others and which provide a sense of meaning to them, however twisted that may be.

For such individuals, conspiracy theories become reality since the world around them is unstable and frightening. Grasping onto something almost tangible, that explains the complexity of life in a simplistic fashion, fills the void that many of us currently feel in an increasingly frightening world. This is why, for example, conspiracy merchants who peddle views of an ‘Islamic takeover’ or of hordes of Muslims outbreeding other communities, manage to find a receptive audience. With less money in people’s pockets, communities aggressively vying for resources in austerity, and a sense of confusion as to where we are heading as a nation, you can see how easy it is for people to believe that there are hidden factors at play. The culprits, in their opinion, are more than likely Muslims, Jews or migrants.

Both Muslims and Jews have felt a sharp rise in hostility towards them and hate crime figures show such a rise over the last five years. Much of this is due to hate online and, furthermore, since 2012, when I founded Tell MAMA, it was clear to me that social media companies would not remove hateful and criminal material, nor would they take down far-right, neo-Nazi or Islamist extremist accounts. Their business model was based on getting traction for their technological revolutions through more accounts opening up. In doing so, they helped create the fog and smoke of disinformation and gave an amplified voice to extremist groups masquerading as ‘free speech’ martyrs. These companies, whilst levelling the playing field for more voices to be heard, also exposed people to views and opinions that would have been marginalised for a reason. Yet their platforms also legitimised toxic views by placing those views into a worldwide market of ideas where extremist groups were better equipped to promote them.

Let me explain. Marginalised, divisive and racist groups by their very nature had to be far more energetic and driven to try to win supporters. Before the advent of social media these people had to host events, print leaflets and remain active at a street level. That all took time and money and, to make it worse, they also looked pretty scary. However, such groups were always driven; they had to be to survive.

Now post their divisive messages on social media with a ‘friendly face’, remove the racist insignia and blame migrants, Muslims and foreigners, and strangely there was a more receptive audience as people’s fears and insecurities rose over the last decade. Additionally, as many of us played catch-up to try to challenge extremist and divisive views, these individuals and groups already had a head start since they were naturally driven and could see the power of the new platforms. It was a toxic, heady mix that was to have a severe impact on our society, as we are now seeing today.

This is why we must mobilise and defend the social values we enjoy in our country, and which are under threat. It is not just those, as this paper has highlighted, who try and divide local communities, who we must challenge; it is also those beyond our shores, who support extremist groups and seek to destabilise our democracy by fomenting instability, whom we must remain vigilant against. If we take our eye off the ball in these crucial years, it is not only our values which may change – it could be our very understanding of reality. Now that truly is frightening.

Police in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria are investigating two officers suspected of performing the illegal Hitler salute.

The German constitution makes it a crime to exhibit Nazi symbols and the incident is likely to feed into a heated debate about racism and the rise of the far right after a record influx of mainly Muslim migrants three years ago.

Police said in a statement on Saturday the two policemen had shouted anti-immigrant remarks and made the salute in a pub in the city of Rosenheim on Thursday. It based its information on a witness who was in the same beer garden as the two officers.

A third man, described as a security guard in the police statement, had also taken part and made the salute. The policemen have been suspended.

German politicians have been urging action to combat a rise in hostility toward foreigners after skinheads last Sunday clashed with police in an eastern city where a man was fatally stabbed and two migrants were identified as the main suspects.

Skinheads raised their arms in Nazi salutes, chased people who appeared to be outsiders and wrestled with police in Chemnitz after police identified the suspects as a Syrian and an Iraqi.

The leaking of the arrest warrant for one of the two stabbing suspects to the anti-Islam group PEGIDA raised concerns that some justice officials in the state of Saxony, where Chemnitz is located, were sympathetic to the far right.

“We will not allow the extreme right to infiltrate our society,” Justice Minister Katarina Barley told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday, urging authorities in Saxony to investigate far-right groups.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal immigration policy remains deeply divisive in a country that has taken in more than 1.6 million people over the last four years.

The influx contributed to the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which entered parliament for the first time in an election last year with a campaign that proclaimed Islam to be incompatible with the German constitution.

Some 8,000 people took part in a demonstration organised by the AfD and the anti-Islam group PEGIDA in Chemnitz on Saturday. About 3,000 people attended a rival protest by leftist groups.

Police said on Sunday that the demonstrations were largely peaceful.

Leftist groups will hold a concert in the city on Monday to denounce xenophobia and hatred against refugees and foreigners.

Britain’s former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has called Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite and said comments about Zionists he made five years ago were the most offensive by a senior UK politician in half a century.

Labour has been battling accusations of anti-Semitism for months, and Corbyn has previously apologised for what he has described as “pockets” of anti-Semitism in his party.

Sacks, who was Britain’s Chief Rabbi from 1991 to 2013, accused Corbyn of having “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map”.

He said Corbyn had depicted a group of British citizens as “essentially alien” when it was revealed last week he said in 2013 that British Zionists “don’t understand English irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time”.

“When he implies that, however long they have lived here, Jews are not fully British, he is using the language of classic pre-war European anti-Semitism,” Sacks told the New Statesman political magazine.

“Now, within living memory of the Holocaust, and while Jews are being murdered elsewhere in Europe for being Jews, we have an anti-Semite as the leader of the Labour party and Her Majesty’s opposition. That is why Jews feel so threatened by Mr Corbyn and those who support him.”

Labour said in a statement there is no place for anti-Semitism in their party and that they are committed to rebuilding trust with the Jewish community.

Some opinion polls put Labour ahead or level with Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives, meaning he is a potential British leader, although the next election is not due until 2022.

Sacks compared Corbyn’s comments to the infamous “Rivers of blood” speech by Enoch Powell in 1968 in which the then-Conservative shadow cabinet member warned of the dangers of immigration. His speech is widely regarded as one of the most divisive made by a modern British politician.

Labour dismissed the comparison with Powell as “absurd and offensive”.

Since unexpectedly becoming Labour leader in 2015 after decades spent on the left-wing fringes of the party, Corbyn has repeatedly faced accusations of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic comments in the party and among groups he supports.

Corbyn has responded to protests by meeting Jewish community leaders, reassuring Jewish people they are welcome in the party.

In his 2013 speech to a meeting convened by the Palestinian Return Centre, Corbyn spoke about the importance of history and of how necessary it was for people to understand the origins of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

He said Zionists had “two problems” – firstly, that they do not study history and, secondly, they do not understand English irony.

After the emergence of footage, Labour asserted that Corbyn had been referring to a “group of pro-Israel activists” and had not been singling out Jewish people as a whole.

Facebook said it had deleted hundreds of offensive posts since a law banning online hate speech came into force in Germany at the start of the year that foresees fines of up to 50 million euros (51.53 million pounds) for failure to comply.

The social network received 1,704 complaints under the law, known in Germany as NetzDG, and removed 262 posts between January and June, Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president for global policy solutions said in a blog.

“Hate speech is not allowed on Facebook,” Allan said, adding that the network had removed posts that attacked people who were vulnerable for reasons including ethnicity, nationality, religion or sexual orientation.

Complaints covered a range of alleged offences under Germany’s criminal code, including insult, defamation, incitement to hatred and incitement to crime, the report said. Of the posts that were blocked, the largest number was for insult.

Facebook is less popular in Germany than other European countries, with only around two in five internet users logging on each month, according to researchers eMarketer.

That’s in part due to collective memories of hate-filled propaganda that date back to Germany’s 20th century history of Nazi and Communist rule that don’t always sit well with Facebook’s broad view on freedom of speech.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced criticism in Germany after saying in a recent interview that Facebook should not delete statements denying that the Holocaust happened – a crime in Germany. He later clarified his remarks.

Facebook has a dedicated team of 65 staff handling complaints under the NetzDG, Allan said, adding that this could be adjusted in line with the number of complaints.

From January to June, Facebook removed a total of around 2.5 million posts that violated its own community standards designed to prevent abusive behaviour on the platform.

“We have taken a very careful look at the German law,” Allan wrote in his blog, which was published in German.

“That’s why we are convinced that the overwhelming majority of content considered hate speech in Germany, would be removed if it were examined to see whether it violates our community standards.”

A lawmaker for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Tankred Schipanski, said the NetzDG law – which requires social platforms to remove offensive posts within 24 hours – was doing the job for which it was intended.

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The bodies of at least 17 Muslim women and children were found on Thursday (August 31) in Teknaf, Bangladesh, as tens of thousands tried to flee the fighting in northern Myanmar.

The victims were believed to have drown after their boat capsized while crossing the border through the Bay of Bengal.

Around 38,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar, United Nations sources said, a week after Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army base in Rakhine state, prompting clashes and a military counteroffensive.

The army said it was conducting clearance operations against “extremist terrorists” and security forces had been told to protect civilians. But Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh said it was a campaign of arson and killings aimed to force them out.

On Friday (September 1), Bangladesh border guards found the bodies of another 15 Rohingya Muslims, area commander Lt. Col. Ariful Islam told Reuters. About 20,000 more Rohingya trying to flee are stuck in no man’s land at the border, the U.N. sources said, as aid workers in Bangladesh struggle to alleviate the sufferings of a sudden influx of thousands of hungry and traumatized people.