Belfast

Here's what you need to know about the hate riots in Belfast, and why it matters in the US.

Screenshot from RTE news broadcast.

“Very poor white people” …[are being convinced that]... “very poor, hard-working brown or Black people” [are responsible for the] “problems caused by billionaire white men”... “I believe that Elon Musk did not just blindly buy Twitter. He did it for a reason. To control a lot of those narratives and what’s put into the domain.”...

-Allison Morris, Crime Correspondent at the Belfast Telegraph

This week, far-right actors in Northern Ireland exploited the brutal stabbing of a disabled man to fan the flames of hate, and riots have broken out across the city. The videos and images coming out of Belfast are horrific, but what I’m really struck by is how familiar it all is. Violent protests planned online, conspiracy theories and disinformation spreading rapidly over social media, inciting more violence. Far-Right figures in the UK and MAGA influencers and Trump Administration officials in the U.S. are piling on even further.

We’ve seen this all before. The Dublin riots in 2023, multiple incidents in the United Kingdom and other European nations, and of course, what I’ve chronicled in the U.S. over the last decade or so. We all know the role that Big Tech, and the bad actors who exploit the platforms they own, play in making the world less safe for everyone.

Then again, perhaps “exploit” isn’t the right word. You could argue that bad actors are using the platforms as intended. And if the world is burning, that’s because men like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg intentionally set it on fire. Zuckerberg is content to let users on the platforms he owns do the dirty work for him, but per usual, Musk is an active participant. Posting a stream of hateful content about Belfast on a platform juiced to ensure he’s the most influential user. The violence is a feature, not a bug. AI is, of course, making it worse, as content created to feed the algorithms can propagate faster than ever before.

Alison Morris, a reporter for the Belfast Telegraph, put it succinctly on Channel 4 News,placing the blame squarely on Elon Musk for inciting the violence, and stating that his purchase and control of Twitter (now X) were intentional. It’s worth watching.

Since my audience is mostly American, and I’m decidedly not an expert on politics in Ireland or the UK, I don’t want to unpack what’s happening on the ground too much. But I do think it’s worth noting that Belfast is in Northern Ireland, which is governed by the United Kingdom. For all of the “Ireland for the Irish” bullshit I’m seeing online, the UK Parliament sets immigration policies in London, and not locally in Belfast. Historic tensions obviously play a role, and as Al Jazeera points out in its reporting. At the same time, there’s no official connection between riot organizers and existing unionist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland; “young men who participate in these riots would have been prime recruitment targets of such groups.”

If you want to know more from the ground, I’d suggest Alison Morris’s writing in the Belfast Telegraph, David Gilbert at Wired, and HOPE not Hate, an organization that researches the far-right in the UK.

What is vital for my readers to understand is that the far-right is a global fascist movement. For all the crowing about America First! (or Britain First, or Ireland for the Irish, etc.) What the far-right wants is a world where they hold all the power and control, and the rest of us are forced to live by their whims. They organize and coordinate online, in plain sight, sharing best practices with one another. As reporter Phil Williams points out in his excellent newsletter, white nationalist groups in the U.S. “are openly celebrating the violent attacks on immigrants in Belfast and suggesting their followers can learn from the rioters’ tactics.”

I don’t know what the answer is. Checking in with colleagues this week, everyone who’s been following Belfast feels pretty defeated by the situation and the similarities to happenings in other parts of the world. Online hate is decidedly getting worse everywhere, and humanity lives with increasing violence as a result. But I think it’s important to be clear-eyed about what’s happening, why it’s happening, and who the villains are.

On a more optimistic note, yesterday in Belfast, thousands of people turned up for the “largest anti-racism rally” in the city’s history. There was a similarly well-attended event in Derry. A reminder that while the fascists want us to believe they are the majority, the reality is that they are not.

Image Credit: Progressive Politics NI Facebook page.

---

ICYMI

• Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People (404 Media)

• The Anti-Blake Lively to Election Fraud Conspiracy Pipeline (Spitfire News)

• America’s Doctors Just Voted for War With RFK Jr. (Politico)

---

3 Easy Ways to Support CARD

1. Forward the newsletter to a friend or colleague who would find it valuable. Personal recommendations are one of my strongest growth drivers.

2. Share this week’s article with your people in your group chats and on social media.

3. Contribute: I still need to raise over $12,000 by the end of the year. If your payment information is already saved on ActBlue, you can donate with one click! (And if you’re already a donor or subscriber, THANK YOU!)

If you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:

That’s all for this week. We’ll do this again next Sunday. Take Care!