Carrie Twomey ✍ writes of the stereotypical Irish content being farmed by MAGA accounts on social media to Irish American audiences
My family, who do not support Trump or MAGA, often send videos me they come across related to Ireland, videos fed to them by the Facebook algorithm alongside Irish dancing and travel videos.
The last 6 Facebook videos I was sent from family in the United States (all about the fuel protest) were from far right MAGA influencer accounts spreading propaganda.
The far right in Ireland is being supported by MAGA, Steve Bannon, and the US State Department under Trump (Sarah Rogers).
They want to create an Irish Trump - they were hoping they could get Conor McGregor elected and that's why he was at the White House St Patrick's Day in 2025.
They want to manipulate Irish Americans with propaganda presenting Ireland and stereotypical Irishness as being MAGA and pro Trump, so they push these false narratives on social media like these posts and videos.
There's millions of Irish American voters they are targeting with these fake accounts pushing this.
They are also working to destabilise the government here ahead of Ireland holding the EU Presidency.
Ireland has a lot of tech companies' EU headquarters here and is in charge of the data regulators.
The US wants to stop the EU from regulating tech companies.
It also wants to build more data centres and exploit Ireland's energy resources. It's all about money.
We had a week of a handful of farmers and truck drivers do "go slow" protests on major highways (just like the MAGA protest in Canada) and then they started blocking the ports which was becoming a national emergency. Gas stations ran out of fuel and stores were starting to empty.
At first people supported it because they thought the protests were about everyone's cost of living going up.
It quickly became apparent that this was a far right stunt for propaganda purposes and that the farmers and truck drivers involved were only interested in protecting themselves.
First, they were only focused on the Irish government. They called for our Taoiseach to be killed and drove gallows through Dublin. They said nothing about the war in Iran, or Trump, despite that being the reason fuel prices are going up.
Secondly, they stopped the protest as soon as the government deployed the police and agreed to a tax reduction for farmers and haulage.
In a couple weeks that reduction will be gone because the price of fuel will be rising further (Europe has less than 6 weeks reserves left). So it was a pointless protest for the Irish people as a whole. It gained nothing while creating fear and division ahead of a crisis.
But on Thursday, Trump's ambassador to the EU, Andrew Pudzer, met with Irish officials in Dublin to urge the government to keep using and investing in fossil fuels (which the protesters had advocated), and to keep fuel prices down.
Had the protests not just taken place (and almost bring down the government), the ambassador's reception would have been very different.
Ireland would have been more confident heading in a direction similar to Spain's, who are no longer majority dependent on fossil fuels, now relying on renewable sources of energy.
The protest scared officials and helped create a receptive atmosphere for the ambassador instead.
When you're looking at Facebook and Irish content, be very critical. The majority of it is either AI slop or far right propaganda designed to trick you.
Especially if it's Irish related, it is usually wrong and posted by really bad (and racist) accounts. They used to be the Qanon, anti-vaccine Covid denier type accounts.
Now they are using Ireland, its culture, and history, to further spread their disinformation and harm. The manipulation is to make Irish Americans feel proud they are carrying on 'Irish tradition' being MAGA.
⏩Carrie Twomey hates Illinois Nazis (just like the Blues Brothers)
Perhaps some of our more creative technical folk could counter this dross in much the same way as the Iranian creators have responded to Trump?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've a hunch that President Connolly on her visit to Barcelona will articulate a view which is more accurately representative of the overall Irish position.
My hope is that the US will remain a self-correcting democratic system despite current malign influences. In the meantime we'll just have to patiently await and observe these malignants stew in their own piss!