GARDAÍ HAVE BEEN involved in a European-wide operation targeting far-right and terrorist extremists sharing online content, the European Union’s police force has revealed.  

The operation took place on 15 December and involved 13 EU member states and the UK. It was coordinated by the European Union Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) at Europol.

A spokesperson said that the operation, known as a Referral Action Day (RAD), was focused on identifying suspects who are sharing online content and then on alerting online platforms where the content is shared.

The policing bodies then assessed individual platforms on how they responded to the information gathered by the various police forces, including in Ireland.  

“The activities resulted in the referral of 831 items to 34 affected platforms. Referred materials include content produced by or favouring proscribed right-wing extremist organisations.

“It also includes content disseminated in relation to terrorist attacks motivated by violent extremism. Such materials include livestreams, manifestos, claims and celebrations of attacks,” the spokesperson said.

Recent attacks

Europol said that the RAD operations, which began in 2021, followed recent far-right terror attacks in Buffalo in the US and Bratislava in Slovakia.

In Buffalo, in upstate New York, a gunman who killed 10 black shoppers and workers at a supermarket has pleaded guilty to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing that he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

A man, Payton Grendon, pleaded guilty to the May attack having live streamed the attack online. 

The Bratislava attack in October saw two people killed in a shooting in front of an LGBTQ club – with the gunman in that instance also dying by suicide.

The perpetrator, police told local media, had several online accounts and published hate speech and a manifesto on Twitter. 

“The terror attacks in Buffalo and Bratislava illustrated a concerning proliferation of violent right-wing extremist and terrorist activities on a global scale.

“The perpetrators of these attacks were part of transnational online communities and took inspiration from other violent right-wing extremists and terrorists.

“In their manifestos, terrorist actors have highlighted the pivotal role of online propaganda in the radicalisation process. This shows how the abuse of the internet continues to be an important aspect of violent right-wing radicalisation and recruitment,” the spokesperson said.

Europol coordinated operations see participant countries refer content linked to propaganda material to online service providers, inviting them to evaluate and remove the content breaching their terms of service.

The platforms are invited to reinforce their moderation protocols to avoid this type of abuse in the future.

Participating countries were Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, United Kingdom.