Why do they hate London so much?

Rolling your eyes yet? Mystified as to why friends and family further afield are suddenly asking whether it’s safe to visit? I am too, especially given London’s falling murder rates, the lowest in more than a decade.

It doesn’t take too much to unpick what’s going on, from online engagement farming (creating content purely to maximise clicks or views) to culture war politics and long-standing grievances about multiculturalism.

Here’s what you need to know about why London is getting so much hostility.

Making money from outrage

In November 2025, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that a Sri Lankan influencer claims to have made $300k running Facebook pages aimed at British audiences, some of which contained racist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant content.

The influencer openly shares how he and his students push content that outrages, particularly around migration. The more views they get, the more they earn. Popular content includes posts attacking London’s Mayor.

This isn't just a one-off example. Over the last few years, it’s become easier to make money from social media platforms like X, YouTube and TikTok. Individuals with personal blogs and relatively small followings can monetise content quickly, and rage bait is a winning tactic.

In December 2025, the Guardian reported on a study that found YouTube channels spreading fake news about provocative issues in the UK like immigration, had amassed 1.2bn views in 2025, with much of the content fueled by AI. For a whole network of 'creators', divisive content about the UK and London helps pay the bills.

This is fundamentally about economics and business models. Social media platforms profit from user engagement that keeps people on the site longer, and outrage drives more engagement. If the business models work, nothing will change.

Culture wars and robot armies

London isn’t just any city. It’s a global shorthand for multiculturalism, for elite power and progressive social attitudes that culture-war politics feeds on. That makes it a useful target.

President Trump has repeatedly leaned into the ‘London has fallen’ narrative, often attacking the Mayor directly. Most absurd was his claim in a speech to the UN that London wanted to operate under Sharia law.

Added to Elon Musk’s frequent interventions about the UK, two of the world’s most influential online figures are regularly amplifying negative messages about London. UK influencers on the right and far-right also act as amplifiers. Just like with Trump, negative narratives around migration and multiculturalism, galvanise their supporter base.

A short clip of a phone snatcher on the city’s streets (my own mobile was recently grabbed and thrown back at me for being “too old” by a thief on wheels) can shape the perceptions of hundreds of millions of people. These moments are often presented as proof of wider collapse.

This goes well beyond the echo chamber of X.com. Dr Mark Hill, from King’s College London, studied how online narratives about London had changed across platforms including Instagram, Nextdoor and Reddit. He found that the number of ‘strongly suspicious’ accounts pushing anti-London narratives had approximately doubled in two years.

He found no evidence linking them to organised groups or state actors. Bu given what we know about information warfare, it would also be naïve to rule out more coordinated activity entirely. A Cambridge University study identified China and Russia as having the largest customer bases for bot accounts globally.

Much of this activity is outsourced to a thriving commercial market offering bots-on-demand. A 2023 NATO report demonstrated how cheaply influence can be bought: for €168, researchers were able to generate thousands of comments, likes, views and shares across multiple platforms.

It has never been easier to distort perceptions at scale.

London just makes some people angry

As a globally recognisable city, content about London is almost guaranteed to travel. But beneath the cynical monetisation of outrage, there are also long-held negative attitudes towards the capital.

Just this month, a YouGov poll revealed 61% of Britons think London is an unsafe place to live. Reform UK voters, many of whom will be a target of online content, are even more negative, with 81% thinking the city is unsafe. Contrast this to what the experience of Londoners shows: only 34% agree its unsafe.

Unsurprisingly, YouGov points out the perceptions of the city’s safety from those outside London have worsened since 2014.

Anti-London sentiment has always leaned on things like safety, unfriendliness, cleanliness and cost. During Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ years, politicians encouraged grievances based on over-investment in the city.

But things are now much more sinister. Instead of painting London for what it is - one of the most successful multicultural cities in the world - we’re witnessing an invented narrative about collapse.

A city that guarantees engagement, platforms that reward outrage, influencers who profit, political actors who benefit and an audience outside the city increasingly disconnected from its lived reality. None of this is accidental.

What can we do about it?

This is the hard part, because none of this is going away so long as it pays. Regulators are trying to get a grip, with Ofcom newly empowered through 2023’s Online Safety Act, and the UK parliament continuing to look at what can be done about harmful algorithms. But regulations always lags behind.

Are we all getting tired from the outrage, click bait and AI slop? Mark Zuckerberg has admitted Facebook and Instagram use has meaningfully declined, although people have likely just shifted to TikTok and messaging apps. There are tentative signs that social media usage may have peaked,  but we still spend hours on these platforms every day.

And as much as they are driven by sensationalism, increasingly we crave authenticity, especially as AI content becomes more prevalent. We’ve seen this in the first few weeks of January, with the Mayor’s media interventions about London’s falling murder rate making the headlines.

It isn’t just the Mayor. Messages about London’s reality land most effectively when they come from voices that reach beyond the usual audiences.

I was struck when the former editor of the Spectator, Fraser Nelson, wrote about London’s declining murder rate, reaching audiences that progressive politicians and commentators cannot. The Youtuber Jimmy the Giant, a former alt-right follower, shared a video with his viewers about why they are being lied to about London. It has had over 300k views.

I was even more struck when I saw that the new Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, had stuck up an unlikely friendship with President Trump. They bond over a love for their city. Surely the same unlikely coalitions can be formed here, with people from across the political spectrum willing to speak honestly about London’s successes and challenges.

We can also do more to expose the cynical motivations behind much of the anti-London content, including the role of bad-faith actors and automated accounts. We need a better understanding of how these narratives land within London, and not assume that the seeds of division being sown elsewhere cannot take root here too.

So, why do they hate London?

For some, it’s about money or politics. For others, it’s physical and cultural distance from a city they don’t experience day to day. London has real problems. But it is also a place where millions of people live ordinary, safe lives in one of the most diverse cities on the planet.

That reality doesn’t disappear just because some people choose not to see it.