Scottish police have issued a plea to the public: please, for the love of all that is holy, factcheck those viral Facebook posts before you grab your pitchfork and head to someone's house. The warning comes after crowds gathered outside two homes in Glasgow this week, in one case because they had the wrong guy.

Police Scotland noted that several nights of disorder in the country's largest city had "clearly been orchestrated by individuals who are not from Glasgow" - because nothing says local activism like out-of-town troublemakers. They added that a further protest based on entirely false information was planned for the weekend, because apparently we haven't learned our lesson.

Large gatherings in the Glasgow neighbourhoods of Cranhill on Tuesday and Castlemilk on Thursday followed online speculation that men accused of serious crimes were living in those areas. The first disturbance resulted from vigilantes discovering that a man charged with assault in connection with an alleged rape by another man in Glasgow city centre in May had recently moved to Cranhill. The second was a case of mistaken identity, targeting an individual who hadn't actually been charged with anything. Oops.

Last week, similar disorder took place in Royston, Glasgow, in response to an alleged sexual assault. In each case, no one has been found guilty of the attacks that prompted the protests - but hey, who needs due process when you have a WhatsApp group?

Five police officers were injured during the three protests, with two men arrested for attacking police. Assistant Chief Constable Alan Waddell told BBC Radio Scotland that protest is "part of Scotland's fabric," but that misinformation was being spread online by bad actors, often from outside Glasgow, who were "tapping into fears within the community about perceived sex offenders … of an ethnic background."

Waddell highlighted a protest planned to take place outside a Glasgow care home this weekend over untrue rumours it will be closed and turned into accommodation for asylum seekers. "I spoke in relation to a protest that turned into disorder a few weeks ago, and I was really clear that people had been targeted in Glasgow because of the colour of their skin," Waddell said. "Some of this that we're seeing just now feels like that's been amplified and built upon. We've really got to call that out and challenge that."

He added: "The public in Scotland know how to protest, and that's lawfully and peacefully. But if you're enticed to go to one that's been generated online [with] a clear focus on disrupting and causing disorder or moving towards violence, don't go. Or sense-check who's put out the information on it, what other sources of information are available, because ultimately you'll be held accountable for your actions. If you break the law you should expect to be caught and punished for that."

David Kennedy from the Scottish Police Federation called the scenes "disgraceful," noting that for some people, "it's about violence, it's not about protest." He said people in Scotland were being "manipulated" by outside influences and that hate crime and disorder were not a legitimate form of protest. Kennedy added that the disorder was "frightening" for officers, who were physically attacked and had missiles thrown at them. "To be confronted with this level of violence, is not something we see in Scotland." Well, until now.