The level of misinformation and disinformation on Irish social media platforms has grown year on year since the covid pandemic, a major study has found.
The ‘Uisce Faoi Thalamh’ report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue looked at 13,180,820 posts from 1,640 accounts across 12 online platforms and found that the number of posts and engagement levels, as well as the number of active accounts, increased year on year between 2020 and 2023.
The study also found that social media platforms are “not successfully enforcing their own community guidelines and there is a clear and obvious enforcement gap on platforms that allows false, misleading or harmful content to survive”.
Ciarán O’Connor of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, one of the co-authors of the ‘Uisce Faoi Thalamh’ report which warns that the rate of mis- and dis-information online has ‘exploded’ since the outbreak of covid.
X, formerly Twitter, is the platform where the most activity within this mis- and disinformation ecosystem occurred for eight out of the nine topics analysed, it said.
Messaging app Telegram continues to grow as a key platform for organisation and discussion within this mis- and disinformation ecosystem, but actors within the Irish mis- and disinformation ecosystem are struggling to break through on TikTok. Most accounts identified were subsequently suspended, but their videos reached more than 1m viewers, the authors of the study said.
However, they also said the use of monetisation and fundraising mechanisms is widespread within the Irish mis- and disinformation ecosystem.
The report says that far-right groups and individuals, as well as alternative media outlets, play a “major role” within the mis- and disinformation ecosystem.
“Hateful ideologies spread with ease, with support for white nationalism, antisemitism and Islamophobia observed on platforms like Telegram and Instagram, while Holocaust denial and the promotion of Nazi material by Irish actors were constant on alternative platforms like Gettr and Gab,” the report says.
“Alternative media outlets routinely produce conspiratorial and confrontational content towards mainstream media which is extremely popular online. Most topics are highly interconnected with the same actors found to be discussing varying topics, with the closest links seen between conversations about health, Irish politics and immigration.”
Report authors Aoife Gallagher, Ciarán O’Connor, and Francesca Visser say that the rate of mis- and dis-information online has “exploded” since the outbreak of covid.
The report adds that while health and covid-19 dominated discussions during the pandemic years, the war in Ukraine, immigration, and LGBT+ issues became the topics of choice during 2022 and the early months of 2023.
The report adds that climate change is also becoming “an increasingly important topic within the mis- and disinformation ecosystem”, often being framed as part of the broader “culture war”.
