A killer on the rampage in Sydney’s Bondi Westfield Shopping Mall murdered six people yesterday, and succumbed to the gunshot of a policewoman who fired from close range. This was naturally headline news in the UK, resulting in prompt speculation about the killer, whose name was withheld by the Australian authorities. There was some blurred footage of a thin, dark haired man walking swiftly through the mall, as well as an image of his lifeless body.

The Australian police said they did not believe the attack was terror related, but there was speculation on social media and from some, a presumption that this was an instance of Islamist terror. While the killer had not been identified, this could not be known and later, when he was named as Joel Cauchi with a history of mental illness, it was shown to be false.

Before the killer was named, I saw that the column on an X/Twitter page which shows trending topics, displayed the trend ‘Benjamin Cohen’. I assumed this was a participant in one of the TV reality shows which I never watch, but which account for certain social media trends which, as far as I am concerned, are an undiscovered country. Through various chat groups, I soon saw that ‘The Jew Benjamin Cohen’ was also a significant trend and that a person of this name was being identified as the Bondi mall killer. I did not find any authoritative source for this and saw that a photo of a dark-haired young man, Ben Cohen of Sydney, was being used to assert identity with the man who turned out to be Joel Cauchi.

A baby had been stabbed in the mall and afterwards received surgery and I saw this kind of tweet proliferating on X.

I saw that the identification of the man as Benjamin Cohen was being promoted by anti Israel or anti Jewish activist accounts and thought it was likely to be false but could not know for sure. Why did I care? Answer: the rumour was already being used to abuse Jewish people in general.

Late last night, Australian police divulged the name of the deceased attacker, Joel Cauchi. So far and, as far as I know, this has not been used to libel any particular demographic. The real Benjamin Cohen has made a brief and dignified video in which he regrets the rumour mongering of social media.

Those who yesterday were asserting his guilt have today moved on to Iran’s overnight attacks on Israel, with drones and missiles, 99% of which were intercepted before they could do harm. They are celebrating this as a great victory for Iran.

Social media puts a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes. It has the speed of a ballistic missile, powered remotely and intended to cause maximum damage. Intercepting a lie or an error is not always possible, but one must try.