GB News Co-Owner Purges Tweets After Exposé Of Social Media Activity
Sir Paul Marshall, co-owner of GB News with a bid to become future owner of The Telegraph and The Spectator, purged tweets Thursday after an activist exposé
of his online activity endorsing “extremist and far right posts.”
Activists at anti-racist advocacy group Hope Not Hate published an investigation that highlighted Marshall’s likes and retweets over the past few months, further run as an exclusive by journalists at The News Agents podcast.
The investigation reports that after making his account private Marshall stripped personal information from the bio and changed the handle to @areopagus123, a nod to the 2021 company he set up called Areopagus Ventures. Marshall reportedly then liked posts calling for mass deportations and predicting a civil war between “native Europeans” and “fake refugee invaders.”
The account, followed by over 4,700 users including MPs and journalists, has become a focal point for those concerned about the potential for his acquisitions to influence the UK’s right-wing media sphere.
Among the content liked by @areopagus123 included posts by Britain First Deputy Leader Ashlea Simon and US-based anti-Muslim campaigner Amy Mek. Others reportedly detailed “the four stages of Islamic conquest”, which stated that Muslim immigration was a form of “infiltration” that would lead to “the establishment of a totalitarian Islamic theocracy.”
Within 48 hours of being contacted by Hope Not Hate the account was largely purged and a representative of Marshall issued the following statement:
“Paul Marshall’s account is private but is nonetheless followed by 5000 people including many journalists. He posts on a wide variety of subjects and those cited represent a small and unrepresentative sample of over 5000 posts. This sample does not represent his views.
“As most X/Twitter users know, it can be a fountain of ideas, but some of it is of uncertain quality and all his posts have now been deleted to avoid any further misunderstanding.”
