A controversial British radio presenter is spreading a fake video about China's Xinjiang policy as part of a disinformation campaign to incite anti-China sentiment in the West.

Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist and London Broadcasting Company host, posted footage showing blindfolded prisoners being herded on the street. He claims the video shows the "genocide" of Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang.

However, the video is found not to be associated with Xinjiang at all. The footage was filmed in Bijie City, China's Guizhou Province on August 4, 2017. It shows over 100 criminals of a massive pyramid scheme gang that was transferred to a detention center by 400 local police officers. It was verified with all of the major news outlets in China.  

The LBC presenter also went on a hunger strike to spark debate in the UK Parliament, which raises the issue of spreading conspiracy videos on social media.

It comes as BBC's The Andrew Marr Show posted an unverified video on social media to challenge Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming on the country's Xinjiang policy.

The BBC didn't independently verify the authenticity of the video that first emerged on Youtube in September last year but claims it has been "authenticated" by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by the U.S. and Western governments.

Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming said the so-called Western intelligence agencies keep making up false accusations against China. 

"That's completely wrong," he said. "There is no such concentration camp in Xinjiang. Even if we are in the information age, there are all kinds of fake accusations against China."

Social media is the main place where people see misleading claims presented as true. It has been long-used by some to sway public opinion.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, social networks have made efforts to bring the potentially dangerous misinformation under control. Twitter said it would label different types of misleading information and remove content that promotes unverified claims.