Scousers across the UK have taken to social media to commemorate the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989, where 96 Liverpool football fans were crushed to death at the FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest in Sheffield.
READ MORE: Hillsborough Police Commander Goes on Trial Over ‘Extraordinarily Bad Failures'
The Sun also falsely asserted that some Liverpool fans had urinated on victims and stolen money from their pockets, prompting immediate backlash from Liverpool fans and Merseyside residents, eventually leading to a boycott of the publication and shaming it as "The Scum". Then Conservative MP for Sheffield Hallam, Irvine Patnick, who later received knighthood, was involved in the defamation against Liverpool fans.
One user said that the most powerful reason why people should not buy the Sun was because of the "utterly shameful way they wrote those lies and smears about blameless LFC fans", adding that the Sun was doing so for its "own profit rather than even a smidgen of truth and integrity".
Another tweeted that the Sun had smeared Hillsborough victims and that Tories had "mocked victim's families" that were fighting to "clear their names".
"Time to stop this poisonous rag doing more damage to the UK," they tweeted. "Convince newsagents, petition your friends & family — Let's stop #TheSun!"
One tweeted the front page of the Sun article featuring the scandalous smear campaign against Liverpool fans. "30 years on," user Ben Selby wrote. "We'll never forget the 96 and we'll never by The Sun."
One user reminded others of the moment for reflection at 15:06 — the time of the tragedy — to "remember the 96 men, women & children who 30 years ago today went to a football match to see their team, but never returned home".
David Duckenfield, 74, was the South Yorkshire Police commander and went on trial on 15 January at Preston Crown Court over "extraordinarily bad failures" over his supervisory duties of the event over 95 immediate deaths resulting from the crush. One football fan, Tony Bland, died four years later.