The recent rioting in Ballymena and surrounding areas is troubling on a number of levels, not least that it is unlikely to be an isolated event.
What started out as a peaceful protest following an alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl in Ballymena on June 7th quickly descended into race riots when it then emerged that the alleged perpetrators, two 14-year old boys, needed the services of a Romanian interpreter during their court appearance.
Studies of what happened show that Ballymena became the locus of far-right social media activity. At the most acute phase of the rioting, Ballymena was mentioned nearly 80,000 times across different platforms. Crucially, most of these accounts were from outside Northern Ireland.
An analysis of these posts shows that many of them fall within the legal definition of incitement to hatred. It also became clear that many of the rioters were not from Ballymena and were intent on exploiting local tensions. Sporadic violence spread elsewhere in Northern Ireland as well.
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This is similar to what happened in Southport in southern England last year. Far-right activists are opportunistically co-ordinating through social media to stoke tensions and foment race riots.
There are some lessons to be learned. One is the need for ongoing improvement in social media controls.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, has dismantled most of the guardrails on his platform on the basis that they undermine free speech. The reality is that X has become an unmediated platform for hateful content that has very real consequences for the more vulnerable in society, such as the migrant community in Ballymena.
Against this backdrop, the EU has no choice but to resist any pressure from the Trump administration to lessen controls on social media as a quid pro quo for a US-EU trade deal. A key goal of the EU rules is to place responsibility on social media companies to ensure online content is safe, fair and secure.
However, local factors were also at play in Ballymena. The town has become an unemployment blackspot in recent decades. Meanwhile, the 2021 census shows the arrival of non-English speaking migrants into the town and surrounding areas in recent years. While some tensions have been reported, the recent riots are a dramatic and worrying escalation.
In responding to this, political leadership is important. Wrapping criticism of thuggish, racist violence with suggestions that shortcomings in managing immigration in some way provide a rationale – as at least some politicians seem to have done – is not acceptable.
Condemnation of what happened must be unequivocal.
