Channel3Now (also stylised as Channel3 NOW) was a website based in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

which aggregated crime news while presenting itself as an American-style TV channel. Launched in 2023, the website was shut down in August 2024 after sharing

fake news Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in realit ...

which fuelled riots in the United Kingdom. On August 20, 2024, a person linked to the website was arrested in Pakistan on charges of

cyberterrorism Cyberterrorism is the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten, the loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political or ideological gains through threat or intimidation. Acts of deliberate, la ...

; the case was later dropped.

History

Channel3Now was registered as a website with a domain server located in Ireland on 15 June 2023. According to

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...

, the earliest archived versions of the Channel3Now site date back to September 2023. An

OSINT Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is the collection and analysis of data gathered from open sources (covert and publicly available sources) to produce actionable intelligence. OSINT is primarily used in national security, law enforcement, and bus ...

investigation by the

Institute for Strategic Dialogue The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is a think tank founded in 2006 by Sasha Havlicek and George Weidenfeld that specialises in research and policy advice on hate, extremism, and disinformation. It is headquartered in London, United ...

indicated that an earlier version of the website was hosted at an address in Pakistan. The website was previously known as Fox3 Now, Fox5 Now and Fox7 Now, leading to a legal dispute with the unrelated Fox Media LLC. In August 2023, an arbitration ruling ordered the website to transfer those domains to Fox Media LLC. In July 2024, following the

attempted assassination of Donald Trump At a June 18, 2016, rally for presumptive-nominee Donald Trump's presidential campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada, Michael Steven Sandford attempted to grab the pistol of a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer providing security for the event. Upon ...

, Channel3Now posted a video on its Rumble account falsely claiming that the perpetrator had been identified as a Chinese man. It also posted baseless claims on X/

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

about the criminal history of

Thomas Matthew Crooks Thomas Matthew Crooks (September 20, 2003 – July 13, 2024) was an American man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, the former president of the United States and, at that time, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for the 2024 pre ...

, a white man who was later identified as the suspect and confirmed to have no criminal history.

Riots, arrest and shutdown

On 29 July 2024, Channel3Now posted a false article claiming that the 17-year-old charged in the

Southport stabbing On 29 July 2024, a mass stabbing targeting children occurred at a dance studio in Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom. Three children were killed, and ten other people – eight of whom were children – were injured. Axel Rudakubana, a 17-ye ...

was a Muslim

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and m ...

who had arrived in the UK by boat a year earlier. It also claimed he was under surveillance by

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intellige ...

. The article was widely quoted in viral posts on social media. On 31 July 2024, the website issued an apology, blaming its "misleading information" on the riots on a now-dismissed team of employees. Its

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

channel and associated

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

pages were suspended. On 14 August 2024, an investigation by ''

ITV News at Ten ''ITV News at Ten'' (or more commonly ''News at Ten'') is the flagship evening news programme on British television network ITV, produced by ITN and founded by news editor Geoffrey Cox in July 1967. The bulletin was the first permanent 30-mi ...

'' identified a person from

Lahore, Pakistan Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

as working for Channel3Now. The individual denied being responsible for the article, claimed he was merely a freelancer, and said three or four people were fired for publishing the false information. Channel3Now's website was shut down later that day. On 20 August 2024, the same person was arrested by Pakistani police for spreading false information. The case was dropped six days later after police said they were unable to find evidence that the accused was the originator of the fake news article.

Speculation on Russian ties

In the aftermath of the riots, British media speculated that Channel3Now might be linked to

Russian disinformation Russian disinformation campaigns have occurred in many countries. For example, in Africa, disinformation campaigns led by Yevgeny Prigozhin have been reported in several different countries. Russia, however, denies that it uses disinformation to ...

efforts, with a former head of

endorsing the theory in an interview with ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

''. However, a ''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'' investigation on 8 August 2024 found no evidence to back up the claim. One source of this theory had been the presence of Russian-language content in the history of its YouTube channel. According to Channel3Now, it had purchased a former Russian-language

channel and changed its name, initially posting video content related to Pakistan.

References

{{Use British English, date=November 2024 Fake news websites Defunct Pakistani websites Disinformation in Pakistan Pakistan–United Kingdom relations Pakistani news websites 2023 establishments in Pakistan Internet properties established in 2023 2024 disestablishments in Pakistan Internet properties disestablished in 2024 News aggregators 2024 United Kingdom riots Fake news in Pakistan 2020s in Lahore