Search Climate Insights Directory

The report examines 34 Irish far-right Telegram channels, revealing a massive increase in activity between 2019 and 2020. It details how these communities use the platform's limited moderation to target minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and political opponents through orchestrated disinformation campaigns. Case studies show the far-right's role in inciting racial tension following the shooting of George Nkencho, spreading false claims about a house fire in Balbriggan, and launching a homophobic smear campaign against Minister Roderic O'Gorman. The analysis also highlights a significant intersection between far-right actors and COVID-19 conspiracy networks.

The report provides a case study of the Fuouaris Upload network, a pro-ISIS ecosystem on Facebook that used account hijacking, content masking, and coordinated 'raids' to spread propaganda. Between April 7 and July 3, 2020, researchers tracked 288 accounts, finding that a core group of 90 was controlled by a single user, Luqmen Ben Tachafin. The network expanded to SoundCloud and utilized multilingual communities (including Indonesian, Somali, and Albanian) to bypass moderation. The report highlights the use of COVID-19 narratives to celebrate death tolls and the exploitation of virtual phone number apps to hijack accounts, arguing that Facebook's reliance on AI and hashing is insufficient without 'street level' understanding of extremist tactics.