loved david attenborough’s london documentary this week.
made me realise just how lucky we are to have such a beautiful city on our doorsteps.
coffeewalnut08 on
‘But new statistics show the capital’s homicide rate has reached its lowest level in years.
According to data from the Metropolitan Police, there were 93 murders in London in the 12 months to October 2025.
In the 12 months leading up to September, violent crime fell in all 32 London boroughs, according to figures from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.”
The figures track with a drop in NHS records for those admitted to hospitals in London with stab wounds.
Dr Hill said: “This isn’t about whether London is safe or unsafe. It’s about how online narratives form, spread, and shape public perception.”
Dr Hill said: “There’s a lot of evidence that emotionally loaded content spreads more quickly across social media – and negativity more quickly than positivity.
“Because of social media’s ability to amplify voices, even a small number of accounts can become heard disproportionally, or make a topic appear more widespread than it really is.’
All really important points.
But many people won’t let statistics get in the way of a convenient narrative. The far-right needs people to feel unsafe, so that they can claim to be the “solution” and “bring safety”.
Financial-King8228 on
I’ve been to London twice in last 10 years every time was a good experience with good people. There are some scammers you have watch out for but they usually get caught anyway.
Just keep your wits about you like when visiting any city.
Pen_dragons_pizza on
I never believed this rubbish on socials about London being dangerous, although for the first time I felt a bit uneasy recently.
I visited a rather wealthy friends for Christmas in Kensington, she is pretty wealthy and lives obviously in a nice street. Was grabbing stuff from my car to bring inside and what was around 6-7 men/boys in the usual black tracksuits, faces covered etc were walking by and eying up the contents of my car and me.
Made me feel a bit awkward tbh and noticed they were hanging around the street a lot, back and forth and causing a bit of noise.
Nothing come of it but it did make me think that the city and the country for that fact needs to do something about people covering their faces. These guys could have done anything and I would have not had a single piece of identifying detail to give to the police to make an arrest.
But yeah, London is safe but I am sure more can be done
Krabsandwich on
I lived in London for years my main complaints were never able to get a taxi south of the river at night, the Circle and District Line and the price of a pint. Its a massive city with a pretty low crime rate and all in all its a good place to live.
I never understood the London is a hellscape posts its not that bad, its walkable amazing green spaces and some outstanding local neighbourhood shopping.
Tomatoflee on
I’ve noticed the same for other European cities as well. Imo this is likely to be propaganda. Remember how France found that bedbug scare stories were being pushed by Russian bots to harm tourism and to divide by falsely linking bedbug infestation scares to Ukrainian refugees?
I live between the UK and Italy and I’ve noticed the same thing happening in certain Italian cities increasingly. Every slightly negative event is amplified and blown up on social media by accounts that are often not that old.
There has also been an explosion of new “news” and “askX” subreddits all over the world over the last few months. Subs like “AskBrits” for example. The modus operandi seems to be the same all over whether it’s the UK, Italy, or Japan.
Posters, often with months old accounts with all posts and comments hidden on their profile, keep up a steady stream of negative stories and post articles and fake questions about divisive topics. The idea imo is to raise the salience of issues like immigration so we talk about nothing else, and to make sure that the conversation is as divisive as possible.
These kinds of posts appear on well run subs and suspiciously run ones too, for armies of bots and bad actors to amplify and dictate the tone of conversation. The suspiciously run subs tend also to quietly ban anyone who pushes back too much.
Social media propaganda has been turbocharged by AI and it’s likely that a wide range of state and non state actors are taking advantage. The controversial Swiss university experiment showed us how easy it is to get away with. Students made accounts that easily bypassed Reddit’s security measures and bot detection. None of their AI bots was identified as AI and their experiment found that AI was more effective than real humans at persuasion.
I don’t understand why we’re not doing more to protect ourselves from the onslaught of propaganda. It has such terribly negative effects.
Stock_Rush_9204 on
London is such a cool city with so much culture, history and beauty I’m glad to live so close to it
AxiosXiphos on
Never been safer. As much as I don’t like capital cities- we are fortunate. I’ve seen far worse in my travels.
Gentle_Snail on
The organised online attack against London has been nothing short of perplexing, I’m glad to see people finally fighting back against it.
9 Comments
loved david attenborough’s london documentary this week.
made me realise just how lucky we are to have such a beautiful city on our doorsteps.
‘But new statistics show the capital’s homicide rate has reached its lowest level in years.
According to data from the Metropolitan Police, there were 93 murders in London in the 12 months to October 2025.
In the 12 months leading up to September, violent crime fell in all 32 London boroughs, according to figures from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.”
The figures track with a drop in NHS records for those admitted to hospitals in London with stab wounds.
Dr Hill said: “This isn’t about whether London is safe or unsafe. It’s about how online narratives form, spread, and shape public perception.”
Dr Hill said: “There’s a lot of evidence that emotionally loaded content spreads more quickly across social media – and negativity more quickly than positivity.
“Because of social media’s ability to amplify voices, even a small number of accounts can become heard disproportionally, or make a topic appear more widespread than it really is.’
All really important points.
But many people won’t let statistics get in the way of a convenient narrative. The far-right needs people to feel unsafe, so that they can claim to be the “solution” and “bring safety”.
I’ve been to London twice in last 10 years every time was a good experience with good people. There are some scammers you have watch out for but they usually get caught anyway.
Just keep your wits about you like when visiting any city.
I never believed this rubbish on socials about London being dangerous, although for the first time I felt a bit uneasy recently.
I visited a rather wealthy friends for Christmas in Kensington, she is pretty wealthy and lives obviously in a nice street. Was grabbing stuff from my car to bring inside and what was around 6-7 men/boys in the usual black tracksuits, faces covered etc were walking by and eying up the contents of my car and me.
Made me feel a bit awkward tbh and noticed they were hanging around the street a lot, back and forth and causing a bit of noise.
Nothing come of it but it did make me think that the city and the country for that fact needs to do something about people covering their faces. These guys could have done anything and I would have not had a single piece of identifying detail to give to the police to make an arrest.
But yeah, London is safe but I am sure more can be done
I lived in London for years my main complaints were never able to get a taxi south of the river at night, the Circle and District Line and the price of a pint. Its a massive city with a pretty low crime rate and all in all its a good place to live.
I never understood the London is a hellscape posts its not that bad, its walkable amazing green spaces and some outstanding local neighbourhood shopping.
I’ve noticed the same for other European cities as well. Imo this is likely to be propaganda. Remember how France found that bedbug scare stories were being pushed by Russian bots to harm tourism and to divide by falsely linking bedbug infestation scares to Ukrainian refugees?
I live between the UK and Italy and I’ve noticed the same thing happening in certain Italian cities increasingly. Every slightly negative event is amplified and blown up on social media by accounts that are often not that old.
There has also been an explosion of new “news” and “askX” subreddits all over the world over the last few months. Subs like “AskBrits” for example. The modus operandi seems to be the same all over whether it’s the UK, Italy, or Japan.
Posters, often with months old accounts with all posts and comments hidden on their profile, keep up a steady stream of negative stories and post articles and fake questions about divisive topics. The idea imo is to raise the salience of issues like immigration so we talk about nothing else, and to make sure that the conversation is as divisive as possible.
These kinds of posts appear on well run subs and suspiciously run ones too, for armies of bots and bad actors to amplify and dictate the tone of conversation. The suspiciously run subs tend also to quietly ban anyone who pushes back too much.
Social media propaganda has been turbocharged by AI and it’s likely that a wide range of state and non state actors are taking advantage. The controversial Swiss university experiment showed us how easy it is to get away with. Students made accounts that easily bypassed Reddit’s security measures and bot detection. None of their AI bots was identified as AI and their experiment found that AI was more effective than real humans at persuasion.
I don’t understand why we’re not doing more to protect ourselves from the onslaught of propaganda. It has such terribly negative effects.
London is such a cool city with so much culture, history and beauty I’m glad to live so close to it
Never been safer. As much as I don’t like capital cities- we are fortunate. I’ve seen far worse in my travels.
The organised online attack against London has been nothing short of perplexing, I’m glad to see people finally fighting back against it.