There was a lot of fake and hate information on social media during the UK election

London (Reuters) - At least 10 social media accounts suspected to be operated by bots are spreading false and hateful messages through tens of thousands of posts, with an estimated 150 million views, as British politics gears up for elections, according to an investigation by an NGO.

Prime Minister Sunak announced in late May that a national election would be held on July 4. During this period, Global Witness found 10 suspected bot accounts on the social media X platform that shared more than 60,000 messages containing conspiracy theories and violent hate speech, including Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic and other content.

Global Witness said the accounts also promoted Russian President Vladimir Putin, but because they uploaded so many related posts, it is expected to have a big impact. Facebook is also reported to be showing such content. Russia and other hostile forces are trying to influence Britain's democratic process, Deputy Prime Minister Gordon Dowden has warned.

Global Witness said most of the accounts in question were sharing extremist content and that it had found no evidence that any UK political party had paid to use or promote the bot accounts in their election campaigns.

In addition, according to various pre-election polls, Keir Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour Party, has a strong probability of beating the center-right Conservatives by about 20 percentage points, bringing about the first change of government since 2010.

AFP interviewed some British voters ahead of the election. Gosling, a 64-year-old retired resident of England, said she would "absolutely vote" for Labour and slammed the Conservative government as corrupt, ineffective and immoral. "While people are struggling to make ends meet, the prime minister (Sunak) is a millionaire," she said.

Another first-voter said the Conservatives had ruined Britain, but that the far-right Reform Party was racist and the Greens could not win the election, so they voted Labour.

There are also undecided voters who say every party looks equally bad and has no solutions to the problems facing the country. "I don't think they know what people have to go through in their lives," said Forrest, 61, a right-wing voter. They are really out of touch with the people."

Because of Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system, which elects members of Parliament in the country's 650 constituencies, larger, more established parties, such as the Conservatives and Labour, have an easier time winning constituencies and taking power than smaller parties because their support is concentrated in specific areas.

If no party wins more than 326 seats, there will be a hung parliament. In such cases, the main parties usually try to strike deals with other parties to form a governing coalition.