Social media posts shared hundreds of times have claimed that Kent Police’s facial recognition team said “around 76% of Dover protestors have previous convictions for domestic abuse, paedophilia, GBH or drug dealing”. But this is false—it is based on a joke post from a satire account.
Kent Police confirmed the post was inaccurate and that it did not issue or recognise the statistic.
Hundreds of masked protestors caused disruption at the Port of Dover on Saturday.
The account which appears to have first posted the claim describes itself as an “obvious satire account” in its bio, but many people seem to think the statistic is genuine.
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One Facebook post was captioned “hands up those who are surprised by this information”, while an Instagram post said “a bunch of criminals dressed as vigilantes. What a joke!”
Before sharing content like this, it’s important to consider whether it comes from a trustworthy source. Our misinformation toolkit contains tips on how to do this.
