Extreme anti-immigrant narratives are being peddled on social media by rightist agitators in Ireland and the UK – promoting the myth that Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland are uniting against incomers from elsewhere.

This is reported on Friday May 2nd, 2025 by Freya McClements of the Irish Times, summarising a study commissioned by the Belfast-based human rights NGO the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) with the support of the Equality Coalition.

This narrative impacts in real incidents of racial hatred and victimisation of innocent incomers – without whom the NI health service, to take just one example, could not function.

The study examines the role of social media in fomenting anti-immigration and Islamophobic protests and riots in Belfast in August 2024, and the online abuse of Northern Ireland’s first black mayor, Lilian Seenoi-Barr.

“[Social Media] Platforms must not be allowed to profit from this harm unchecked. We provide clear recommendations: stronger regulation, direct platform engagement to challenge lies and disinformation, and critical alternatives to existing social media ecosystems,” he said.

This report reinforces the prediction of the Catholic anthropologist René Girard that in a time of crisis rivals for power will coalesce to scapegoat an innocent and powerless victim – and that the Bible is the world’s greatest revelation of this repeating Satanic pattern.

For those with access, Freya McClements’ report in the Irish Times can be read here.