Thread by @ciaranoconnor

Ten days after the anti-lockdown protests in Dublin on Feb 28, what have Irish FB communities that regularly host & post COVID conspiracies & misinformation been talking about? ⬇️

This post claims those who instigated violence on Feb 28 were “planted by supporters of the government” & Gardai deliberately charged at protesters w/ “brutal force.”

Also, the photo is from 2010.

This was published in a group of 15k members & shared a further 91 times.

This post claims Texas is fully open & credits this to people having "ak47s". Also claims the video shows a nightclub open with no masks/social distancing.

The video is actually from 2018. Doesn’t stop the FB post generating anger towards current conditions in Ireland, though.

This post features comments from Dolores Cahill, one of the more prolific COVID misinfo influencers, who has downplayed the severity of COVID19 & said there is no need for a vaccine (thejournal.ie/dolores-cahill…)

This was posted in a grp with 18k members & shared a further 95 times.

This post features a voice message from a representative for an anti-vaccine party in Israel who has called the country’s vaccination program a “medical apartheid.”

This was posted in a group with 5700 members & has been shared 650 times.

In the same communities are posts, posters & a FB event for further protests on March 17.

There’s a reason we focus so much on the online ecosystem supporting covid protests in Ireland & abroad; the same spaces are replete with deceptive information that is radicalising people.