This is an extract from this month’s edition of The Journal’s monthly FactCheck newsletter, which looks at what misinformation is being shared right now and points at trends in factchecking. Find out more and sign up here or at the bottom of the page.
Three years ago this week, Ireland reported its first case of Covid-19.
Pieces looking back at that era tend to highlight all the ways that society has changed because of the pandemic, but those reflections can sometimes obscure how certain things have stayed exactly the same.
Remember the frenzied speculation on social media before a Covid case was officially confirmed here, the general sense of anxiety around the virus and whether it might kill you or a loved one?
Ahead of the first lockdowns, Facebook and WhatsApp were awash grainy images of people in white hazmat suits, messages about yet-to-be-confirmed cases in named locations in Ireland (long before having Covid was normal), dodgy tips on how to stave off the virus, and the infamous voice-note claiming that the army was prepped for a ‘Status Red lockdown’.
Despite everything that followed and the fact that almost none of the rumours turned out to be true, we are seeing this phenomenon repeat itself in Ireland right now.
Three years on, however, it isn’t Covid that’s the target of unfounded claims: it’s migrants and refugees.
The playbook is almost identical to how things unfolded in early 2020.
A person claims something on Facebook or WhatsApp as a warning, and may share a grainy image or video of the incident they describe as ‘proof’; the message is then re-shared on Facebook, or screenshotted and re-shared in a messaging app, where it is forwarded on in groups; finally, it hops between social media platforms and becomes spoken about as an accepted truth.
In the past month, The Journal has spotted scores of unfounded claims about migrants or non-white men in this format – usually involving allegations of sexual crimes. They have tended to originate on Facebook before circulating on the messaging app Telegram, where they are widely shared in far-right groups.
One such post, accompanied by video of a black man on a Dublin Bus and another video of a Garda car outside the bus, claimed that the man sexually assaulted a woman on the bus. However, after making inquiries, we learned that no such assault took place.
Another post, which accompanied a video of a burning car in Dublin city centre, claimed that a young girl was dragged into a van by a “foreign man” before being rescued and that the van was then set alright. But Gardaí told us that they had received no reports of an attempted abduction.
An older Facebook post that was re-shared on Telegram last week also claimed that “a foreigner” tried to abduct a child in a supermarket in Cashel. Once again, we learned from follow-up inquiries that Gardaí attended the scene and found that this was not the case.
And yet another claim circulated at the weekend that four migrant men attempted to abduct a child at a supermarket in Tallaght, with suggestion that the men were connected to the assault of a girl in the area. Gardaí told us they had no record of any attempted abductions or assaults in the area at the time.
As with Covid, some of those sharing these claims tend not to worry that the rumours might be false: to them, it is better for people to arm themselves with knowledge that could keep them safe, rather than living in danger without information.
But a more sinister element also exists than was the case when rumours about the virus circulated.
The nature of unfounded rumours about the sexual deviancy of foreign men got to the point that Gardaí felt the need to say they were seeking a white Irish male in relation to an assault that kickstarted a series of anti-migrant protests in Finglas.
Another trend last month saw social media flooded with video clips of coaches, alongside claims that migrants were arriving into an area – a tactic which set off protests in East Wall last November.
The aim was clearly to whip up hysteria about the arrival of migrants, pitting local communities on one side against foreign nationals and the Government on the other, with anti-migrant campaigners and far right groups positioning themselves as white knights by revealing the ‘truth’.
In all of these cases, there is a clear anti-immigrant agenda at play, which seeks to exploit the Government’s struggle to cope with a record influx of refugees last year.
Those seeking protection are dehumanised and subjected to racist attacks, communities are unsettled and given bad names, and far-right parties gain political foothold at the expense of mainstream parties. If you doubt the latter, ask yourself why Sinn Féin, which has never had a role in Government, is being targeted at anti-migrant demos.
The misinformation has gotten to the point that it is leading to arson attacks and disruption of local amenities.
There is no easy solution to all of this, and Justice Minister Simon Harris last week criticised social media firms for not doing enough to tackle false claims about migrants.
“In some cases, it’s a degree of clickbait to drive traffic,” he said in response to questions from The Journal.
“I’m not sure how these famous algorithms work, but I have no doubt that social media companies in some instances where they see lots and lots of people showing things, that can’t be bad for the business model, but it is bad for society.”
While the minister may not be wrong, we also have to cut social media companies a small bit of slack: they are (for obvious reasons) not in the businesses of removing questionable information that may be true, and it is hard to verify the truth of claims – like the ones we spotted above – that may or may not be true.
And a lot of the onus lies with individuals too.
One thing we learned during the pandemic was that people can cut misinformation off at the pass themselves, including by checking claims to see if they follow a specific pattern (like the allegations of sexual crimes above), and not forwarding claims blindly on Facebook or WhatsApp group on the off-chance they’re true.
Nobody knew when Covid arrived on our shores three years ago that it would last as long as it did.
But if we heed the lessons that it taught us about the nature of fake news and unfounded claims, then we can hopefully stop misinformation about migrants becoming as prevalent the virus.
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