A Facebook group in Co Louth that made “insidious” personalised comments about a local Labour councillor over her stance on the refugee issue did not violate the social media platform’s community standards, its parent company Meta has said.
The Termonfeckin Community Standing Together Group was set up in late December after a group of men seeking international protection were accommodated in the Triple House Restaurant in the village.
The Facebook group was set up in opposition to the men being housed there and its membership grew to 1,700 members. Since the group was set up, a substantial number of the posts have targeted Cllr Michelle Hall because of the supportive position she adopted towards the refugees and the housing of asylum seekers in the Co Louth village.
Some posts about Cllr Hall have used sexist and misogynistic terms, while others have used openly racist and xenophobic language. There have also been discussions about ousting her from Louth County Council.
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The asylum seekers staying in temporary accommodation in Termonfeckin have been portrayed by members of the group as “fakeugees”, as being “unvetted” and as people who would pose a threat to the safety of people, especially women, in the community. In one post, Cllr Hall’s face was Photoshopped into images with clear racist overtones.
“Thanks for putting us all in danger Michelle Hall and friends,” another post states. It is illustrated with an image of a hen (with a caption “Refugees Welcome”) and a fox (with a caption “5,000+ Unvetted Men”).
On February 8th, Labour’s General Secretary Billie Sparks contacted Facebook by email, drawing its attention to the group and saying that Ms Hall was being targeted and bullied.
The party sent screenshots from the group in a series of follow-up emails. On February 20th, Facebook responded to Labour by saying neither the content nor the group violated its community standards.
In a statement to The Irish Times, a Meta spokeswoman said: “This is a community group in which members are sharing their concerns about local issues. We don’t allow bullying or harassment on Facebook and will remove it when it is reported to us. We have reviewed the group and determined that the content does not violate our policies.”
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Ms Hall has said the constant stream of abuse and intimidation she has faced online has been upsetting on a personal level as she has been subjected to a litany of false claims and intimidation. She says Facebook based its argument partly on the fact that elected representatives are somehow more robust than others.
“Many people have contacted me to say the group is still posting material about me and what they are saying is really awful. They have crossed the line. Also, people were afraid that the actual asylum seekers would get hurt because they were inciting violence,” she said.
Ms Hall said one of the posts was so nasty and upset her so much, she had to take a day off work.
“The day after that when I went into work I found it hard not to cry when somebody looked at me. I actually was so upset by it because it’s just so vile.”
Ms Hall said the group has accused her of bringing asylum seekers to Termonfeckin, which was not true.
“The only part that I played was I refuted the far right. And I was very disappointed to see a lot of people, almost instantly, believing the far-right message.
“It was very hard to counterbalance that because if you put anything up on your own page to counterbalance, it was just being trolled.”
Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik said she was taken aback by Facebook’s decision to allow such material to remain online.
“Social media companies like Facebook must take responsibility for the abuse and harassment their platforms are facilitating,” she said.
“It’s a threat to our democracy and especially intimidating to women politicians. Any person reading the content reported by the Labour Party can see it is abusive, insidious and intended to have a chilling effect on a democratically elected representative, yet Facebook said it did not breach their community standards.
“While an Online Safety Commissioner has been recently appointed, there is an urgent need for new codes, and publishing platforms like Facebook must be held responsible for what they are facilitating.”
In further comments, Meta said: “We don’t allow statements advocating violence, attacks through derogatory terms related to sexual activity or hate speech.
“Our harassment policy applies to both public and private individuals because we want to prevent unwanted or malicious contact on the platform.
“We allow discourse, which often includes critical discussion of people who are featured in the news or who have a large public audience.”
