Galway West Bye-Election social media abuse 'harmful and racist' - report
New report finds Helen Ogbu was subjected to sustained online attacks
Labour’s Galway West Bye-Election candidate Helen Ogbu was targeted with ‘sustained, harmful, racist and misogynistic abuse’ during the campaign in which she finished third in the race for the Dáil.
That’s the analysis of a not-for-profit organisation that has warned the public discourse on social media about the Galway West Bye-Election highlighted the “ongoing and serious risks to democratic participation” and the “growing normalisation of hostility and harassment” online.
A report by Hope and Courage Collective published on Thursday outlined how interference, smears, harassment, and threats to election integrity were among the harmful activity recorded online in the Galway West and Dublin Central Bye-Elections.
The research found that Galway City Councillor Helen Ogbu, the Labour Party candidate was one of three “primary targets of sustained harmful activity”.
The other two were Dublin’s Janice Boylan (Sinn Féin) and Daniel Ennis (Social Democrats), who along with Ogbu were targeted to “damage their reputations” and “challenge their legitimacy as a candidate”.
“What we are seeing is not simply robust political debate or criticism of candidates. These are coordinated and harmful narratives designed to intimidate individuals, spread fear and undermine confidence in democratic participation.
“Particularly concerning is the extent to which racist and misogynistic narratives are becoming normalised online. Candidates from minority backgrounds and women continue to face disproportionate levels of abuse and intimidation,” said Edel McGinley, Executive Director with Hope and Courage Collective.
A case study in the report found that Ogbu, a Nigerian born Irish citizen who has lived for over two decades in Galway, “was repeatedly targeted online, asserting that she was not a legitimate member of Irish society and therefore should not be entitled to seek public office”.
The report found that posts online alleged she was an “illegal migrant” who had exploited loopholes in Irish citizenship laws.
“These narratives sought to portray democratic participation by migrants and candidates from minority communities as illegitimate or suspect,” the report found.
As well as personal attacks, the report found the “smear campaign framed Ogbu’s candidacy as evidence of wider institutional and media bias or corruption”.
“Additional narratives linked her candidacy to claims that the Labour Party sought to ‘flood the country with migrants’ while ignoring social pressures and public concerns,” the report said.
As well as Ogbu, there were two other candidates in Galway West who were born outside Ireland, Sheila Garrity (Canada) and Denman Rooke (USA). Despite being entitled to contest the elections, they were targeted with claims they had “no right” to run.
The report found that “narratives circulated about the electoral system being vulnerable to ‘foreign influence’, particularly through the participation of foreign-born, migrant-background, or non-Irish national candidates”.
“The disinformation ecosystem supporting these narratives frequently recycled old or misleading material to manufacture suspicion and distrust.
“Influencers resurfaced outdated media stories and used inflammatory language to create an impression of systemic corruption and institutional failure, despite providing no evidence of wrongdoing,” H&CC’s report said.
Speaking to the Galway City Tribune at the count centre last weekend, before the publication of this report, Ogbu said much of the racism directed at her online were from “not real people”.
“I had great support around me. My party were solidly behind me. It wasn’t anything for me to worry about . . . The people online, I don’t see them as the real people. The people who matter to me are the people I meet every day, when I go out and they engage with me and they uplift me. They keep telling me: ‘Keep up the good work, Helen’,” said Ogbu, who finished third in the Bye-Election.