Tommy Robinson Blitzed X with 'Slopaganda' Videos -- What Are They and Why Use Them?

France will be occupied, Belgium will fall into the hands of foreign invaders, London will burn, and New York City's skyline will be shrouded in darkness. These are just some of the AI-generated video predictions of life in 2050 (eerie echoes of past events) that Tommy Robinson posted on his official X feed in the final days of June. Robinson went further, claiming in one such futuristic video this is 'AI showing you the reality.' Freshly released from prison following a 7-month stint for contempt of court and still facing more criminal charges, Robinson continues his on and offline crusade against those he perceives as threats to Great Britain: Muslim immigrants (and Islam writ large), non-white immigrants, the political establishment and media censorship to name only a few targets. Recently, he has repeatedly relied upon a new weapon in his arsenal in furtherance of his political quest -- these futuristic dystopian AI-generated vignettes -- content that experts have branded 'slopaganda.'

A Recipe for Slopaganda

The term slopaganda has just entered the political lexicon, mirroring the incredibly modern nature of the phenomenon itself. The word refers to propaganda created through generative AI, the kind that is poorly-produced and very often replete with misinformation, stereotypes, and biases (the 'slop'). According to a groundbreaking March 2025 research article developed by several scholars, slopaganda has catapulted itself into the political arena thanks to its quick, easy, and cheap production and its effectiveness at polluting knowledge and discourse.

In Robinson's case, the slopaganda he has taken to posting since his release has been short, futuristic dystopian videos of Western cities originally made and posted by other accounts on TikTok. Thus far, he has posted videos -- under 1 minute in length -- featuring London, New York, Paris, Milan, and Brussels. More recently, he posted two more other extremely brief slopaganda videos depicting a future Britain wherein Pakistani and other non-white immigrants come to Britain to exploit social welfare programming, and captioned them 'AI showing you the reality.' Clearly, these videos are not showing viewers the reality, be that because they literally depict a (fictional) future some quarter century from today or because there are clear errors in the scripts utilised by the AI.

Generally speaking, the videos rely on the same stereotypes of non-white immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants from the Global South -- that they will take over and ruin Western cities. They are POV videos, most frequently with the conceit being selfies of tourists vlogging their visits to Western cities. several of them show white tourists panning to show images of garbage, graffiti, wild animals, and open bazaars in major tourist attractions; people who are almost always wearing clothes stereotypically linked to Global South Muslim communities (niqab, burqa, salwar, thobe, etc.); and flags, covered in Arabic and usually green, hanging from buildings (governmental and otherwise). In the case of the videos of Paris and Milan, the POVs are less light-hearted, instead darkly depicting impoverished cities, wherein the same flags are seemingly flown and mass Muslim prayer is shown on the streets and in front of Christian sites of worship. Although the videos never say it, these tropes imply both the Great Replacement Theory and the imposition of sharia law to Western democracies.

The audio reinforces these messages. For one, the 'tourists' jovially describing the sights and smells of the livestock -- chicken coops in shopping centres, goats in grand plazas, sheep outside government buildings. They also joke about the repurposing of historic locales, such as European Parliament housing animals and hosting weddings, or New York City now looking like it had a baby with Marrakesh. In the video depicting a future London, the white male interviewer's voice clearly sounds like that stereotypically attributed to those from the Subcontinent.

Perhaps most notably, the AI attempts to illustrate the Muslim take over by using Islamic terms and imagery. In several videos, what is designed to sound like the Muslim call to prayer can be heard playing over loudspeakers. In the video about future France, the last traditional butcher of pork is seen and heard fighting his arrest (the implication being for violating halal food laws), while in that of Brussels, a tourist is told he cannot buy beer in the supermarket because it is 'halal' (an obvious error, as the actual term would be haram). Meanwhile, in the New York video, the Statue of Liberty is described by the AI as 'Wow look at her now, folks, rocking that niqab like an absolute queen!' The slopaganda describing future Britain presents a Pakistani immigrant explaining his desire to remain in Britain because Britain, not Pakistan, is where he gets free hotels and benefits, to which the white interviewer responds 'Alhamdulillah' (Arabic phrase expressing gratitude to Allah).

A Glut of Slopaganda on Robinson's Curated X Feed

Over the course of 3 days, Robinson's official X account posted 7 such videos. By way of a brief quantitative analysis, these 7 videos accounted for approximately 11 per cent of his own total posting (not including reposts) during those days. Further, they garnered significant public attention even within a handful of days. In under 3 days, the London video gained more than 518,000 views, while the oldest video (about Brussels) gained just under 3 million views in 4 days. In terms of audience engagement (likes, comments, reposts), each slopaganda video stirred literally hundreds of users to comment and/or share, and thousands more likes. Brief comparison with the listed views for the other tweets around this same time demonstrate that these slopaganda videos -- on average -- drew in an equal to slightly above normal viewership and audience engagement, while the Brussels and even the London video outperformed almost all other posts around the same time in terms of views. For context, Robinson's account has 1.3 million followers, meaning that the Brussels video drew in more than double his follower count and that about London had been seen by a sizable audience for Robinson's standards, all within only a few days of posting.

That this kind of slopaganda exists and is widely viewed on X is hardly newsworthy. Social media sites -- not just X but more often Gab, TikTok, Telegram -- are common venues for slopaganda consumption. Meanwhile, Robinson has used AI images in the past, and is arguably most well known for using the video format to spread his message. And yet, this particular genre of video is well outside his standard fare.

Robinson has traditionally had a proclivity to produce and star in his own content. His X account features a large number of selfie videos in which Robinson delivers a soliloquy straight to camera (often for several minutes). In a similar sense, Robinson's voice and face appear in the numerous podcast episodes, TV show and rally appearances, and self-made podcasts that he chooses to do and post. Further, Robinson actually leads an alternative media website -- which he advertises on his X page and in much of his digital content.

Robinson has also devoted countless hours to presenting himself to the public as a citizen journalist, desirous to expose buried truths and amplify under-reported events. As such, his rhetorical strategy has relied upon using news stories and alleged offenses as jumping off points to discuss what he perceives as the deep, uncomfortable issues facing Britain. Take his discussion of grooming gangs as an entryway to discuss immigration, or his troubles with the law as signs of judicial and media partiality/corruption. Similarly, Robinson's content also reflects his real interest in mobilising the public. A large proportion of his photo/video content concentrates on rallies, marches, and other mass gatherings -- be that advertising for it or footage shot by and of attendees. Of late, Robinson has posted often about an upcoming rally he hopes to organise as well as videos capturing marches and violent incidents on the island of Ireland expressing disagreement with immigration/refugee policy.

These slopaganda videos diverge in every way -- except the underlying anti-immigrant, anti-Islam ideology -- from Robinson's normal use of the format. They also diverge from that which was posted on X on his behalf by admins. during his incarceration last year. Despite what Robinson wrote about AI exposing reality, these 7 videos were not real, not created by Robinson nor featuring his likeness, not designed originally for X, and (seemingly) not tethered to anything with which he holds a direct stake in the profit. So, why post them, why did they perform well, and what does this mean for the future?

The Future of Slopaganda

In a real sense, observers can only speculate as to the driving force behind Robinson's turn to slopaganda and whether he will make use of it again in the future. Occam's razor would suggest Robinson saw it posted elsewhere and saw the pros of posting it -- cheap, fast, and on message -- and when the first video performed well, he continued along the same track for several days. Perhaps his repeated use of it reflects a recent discovery of the form -- he was most recently in prison from October 2024 to May 2025 -- and in these months, iterative AI has made major strides in its cinematic and auditory storytelling capabilities; there is more of an audience for such content as well.

There is another potential factor that may have spurred on his interest in sharing such content, and which may drive him to continue using it in the months to come. Robinson's self-styled citizen journalism has led to months-long stints in prison, massive mainstream media attention and scrutiny, and expensive fees and fines. In 2017, Robinson was arrested for live streaming during a court case related to a gang rape, with Robinson allegedly calling defendants 'Muslim child rapists' all while the jury remained in deliberation. Robinson committed a similar offense the next year, and this time the conviction for contempt of court resulted in a prison sentence. During this time, critics denounced Robinson as a threat to the successful prosecution of offenders due to the prejudicial nature of his content. In 2021, he lost a libel case for advancing claims that a teenage Syrian refugee living in the UK, who had featured in a viral video as the victim of an assault by a white classmate, was actually violent danger to his community -- allegations that UK courts found to be false and defamatory. Robinson's most recent 7 month prison sentence again stemmed from contempt of court, specifically for repeatedly reasserting his false claims from the libel case, in several documented instances doing so on social media and/or via the video format.

Even now, Robinson finds himself under restrictions as he faces two counts of harassment causing fear of violence. These stem from allegations about his response to journalists' coverage of his whereabouts -- with implications for the whereabouts of his family -- during the time of the UK riots. He faces yet another trial next year on an unrelated incident, seemingly related to allegations of his refusal to provide a passcode for his phone as requested by police.

Just out of prison for contempt of court, faced with more restrictions on what he can say publicly, and with an immense amount of public scrutiny of his social media activities, Robinson seems to use slopaganda as a low-risk tactic to spread his message, and he would have every reason to continue in the months to come. It tells a story he has long advanced. This sub-genre of futuristic dystopian videos project audience members into a far off, horrible future. They stoke fears of Muslim conquest, of forced conversions, of the end of democracy and multiculturalism at the hands of sharia law, and of the white supremacist trope of the dirty outsiders. As the AI gets better, the slop in slopaganda may even improve.

Untethered to the present, without any trace of violence (the precursors to the conquest depicted in the videos all happen off screen), and divorced from any real-world author, slopaganda is a win-win-win for Robinson and his compatriots. It is free, quick, easy, and popular; it allows him to avoid violating injunctions against him and receiving push-back (as he did in 2017 and 2018) for tainting ongoing prosecutions; and it advances a fear-mongering ideology. For those looking to peddle in prejudice and direct grassroots hate movements, this kind of futuristic dystopian content is almost certainly a guaranteed blockbuster -- little investment or risk and incalculable potential rewards.