Londoners are sick of viral videos telling lies about their city

London Centric tends to publish twice a week, to avoid clogging up your inbox. Sometimes we bring you a single investigation that’s taken months of work. Sometimes we sprinkle some nuggets of news on top, or updates on ongoing stories. And sometimes, like today, we want to bring you a little bit of everything.

Please enjoy this weekend update, which is full of exclusive stories. Promise there’ll be something you haven’t read elsewhere as you scroll down – or your money back. Fresh investigations are coming next week.

Got a story we should be looking into? Get in touch over email or WhatsApp.

From the Amazon rainforest to rural Australia, the world thinks London is collapsing

Thanks to all the readers who got in touch to share their stories of encountering people in some of the most remote corners of the world (which I define as meaning locations ranging from Suriname to Surrey) who think London is in a state of total societal collapse.

This follows our story about the would-be TikTok entrepreneur who said he decided to specialise in fake videos about London homes being given to illegal immigrants because “hate brings views”. On Friday night the Met Police told us they are continuing to investigate whether an offence was committed by the individual behind the TikTok account, who wrongly thought they were posting without any potential consequences.

It’s increasingly clear that London is suffering a global reputational crisis exacerbated by the incentives of viral video sites. It’s impacting tourism, investment in the capital, and the general sense of wellbeing in the city. It’s driven by legitimate raw videos that feature highly visible thefts of mobile phones and violent robberies. It’s then exaggerated by unscrupulous content creators and social media platforms who incentivise ragebait about the supposed total collapse of the city’s society.

First place for the most remote encounter went to London Centric reader Joe Jones:

In November 2025, I was visiting Suriname on holiday. We flew in this tiny plane to a remote jungle outpost in the Amazon rainforest, where we stayed for five days. It is completely off the grid with this small eight-seater plane coming and going twice a week to drop off/pick up guests and drop off supplies. And there was no access to the internet for the guests staying there.

It was run by this Surinamese bloke of about 60. He’d worked

...