The UK Home Secretary has called on social media to remove videos showing migrants crossing the English Channel. The recordings are glorifying.
British Home Secretary Priti Patel has called on social media platforms to remove videos from crossings across the English Channel. Companies like Facebook or TikTok urgently need to act because the videos “glorified” the illegal crossing of the channel by migrants, Patel wrote in a letter to the British news agency PA, according to the British news agency.

According to the Interior Ministry, a video had gone viral on TikTok in the past few days that shows a group of men in a rubber dinghy on the canal. Videos like this have also appeared on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which smugglers use to advertise the crossings. It is unacceptable to advertise these “fatal crossings,” wrote Patel. The conservative politician is known for her tough line against migration – at times, she had brought up military ships in the English Channel.

Time and again, refugees from France make their way across the Canal to Great Britain – often on simple inflatable boats. In the past few days alone, according to the PA, nearly 600 people have tried to cross the canal. Time and again, people are killed in the process. The border police are on duty on both the British and French sides to stop smugglers. Since Brexit, legal immigration to Great Britain has become even more complicated. A points-based immigration system applies.