Cittadino straniero che vive in Irlanda: ultimamente si sente sempre più a disagio
Sono cittadino straniero e vivo in Irlanda da tre anni e mezzo. Amo sinceramente il paese e la gente qui (sì, anche il tempo).
Tutti i miei colleghi sono irlandesi e sono stati a dir poco straordinari per me: gentili, accoglienti e solidali in ogni modo possibile. La mia esperienza quotidiana nella vita reale è stata straordinariamente positiva.
Tuttavia, nell’ultimo anno circa, ho notato un aumento preoccupante di contenuti apertamente razzisti e anti-immigrazione sui social media, soprattutto su Facebook e Instagram. Di recente mi sono imbattuto in un video che mostrava una coda fuori da quello che sembrava un pub o un ristorante durante il periodo natalizio. Sembrava che ci fossero molti cittadini stranieri in coda e la didascalia e i commenti erano davvero disgustosi.
Capisco perfettamente che l’Irlanda sta affrontando una crisi immobiliare e altre gravi sfide, e posso vedere come quella frustrazione possa trasformarsi nell’idea di “si stanno prendendo ciò che è nostro di diritto”. Ma faccio fatica a capire perché le persone che sono arrivate qui legalmente, lavorano a tempo pieno e pagano le tasse vengono trattate come colonizzatori.
Molti cittadini stranieri lavorano in settori essenziali come la sanità e l’informatica. Gli studenti internazionali pagano dai 15.000 ai 35.000 euro per i master, denaro che alimenta direttamente l’economia. Eppure, nonostante ciò, l’ostilità online sembra crescere.
Ultimamente mi sono ritrovato a provare ansia all’idea di uscire, qualcosa che non avevo mai provato prima. Non sono sicuro se ci sto pensando troppo, o se anche altri, irlandesi e non irlandesi, hanno notato questo cambiamento. Mi rendo anche conto che gli algoritmi dei social media amplificano i contenuti estremi, e potrei essere caduto in quella tana del coniglio, ma è comunque inquietante.
Non ho assolutamente alcuna intenzione di fare del male a nessuno o di creare problemi. Volevo solo condividere quanto questo mi abbia fatto sentire in basso e chiedere se altri hanno osservato la stessa tendenza, o se questa disconnessione tra l’odio online e le interazioni nella vita reale è qualcosa con cui anche le persone sono alle prese.
(La foto che ho aggiunto è di uno dei centinaia di post che ho visto solo nell’ultima settimana)
https://i.redd.it/e5su3f36uzbg1.jpeg
di SpecificSun2720
24 commenti
The crowd on Facebook and X are the minority, a very loud minority but a minority none the less..
In England here and we’re facing the same. It’s deeply concerning to see the rise of blatant racism and xenophobia online like this.
It’s radicalising some people, fuelling social tensions and threatening community cohesion up and down the country.
It’s not healthy in any way, and could drive productive immigrants out of key sectors like academia, healthcare, construction, hospitality, etc. Which, I guess for racists, is the point. But nobody wins from it.
My advice would be keep speaking your truth – making posts like this, and bridging divisions. Voices like yours are necessary guardrails against hate.
AI generated images is the best thing to ever happen to this shower of windbags
A huge % of it (as was proven when X flipped open the location of posters) is also just bot farmed and driven internationally.
We need to tackle the social media companies, but nobody’s really willing to grasp the nettle – we’re still in the sending stiff letters and asking them to be nice mode.
Stop reading bots on TikTok.
A lot of this anti immigration content comes from the UK,USA & Russia if it helps at all. But I can’t imagine how unnerving it must be to see so much of it online and the home grown scumbags sprouting it.
We’re nearly 9 million people fewer than we should be at this stage thanks to British colonialism and still these people think we’re somehow full.
Don’t look at social media, look at the election results. Clowns like the national party barely got any votes. The reason being, bots can’t vote.
Social media needs to be banned completely.
Mostly Rage Bait ‘content’ created for clicks.
Its not real, your more than welcome here by the vast majority.
Where did you see this pic posted?
2018 – Ireland whinges about bringing more workers to boost the economy.
2024 – Ireland whinges it can’t house the workers it asked for because it forgot to build houses for 15 years
Fucking typical. We need the immigrant workers, we still do. Just stupid people blame the immigrants rather than the multiple short sighted governments that didn’t get homes built.
I can stop looking at social media, but when the pedestrian button at the red light on my street has a sticker with the Irish flag and a legend “Ireland for the Irish” I can only feel frightened for myself and my children.
Same as OP, came here legally, became a citizen and I was loving it until it all started to happen in real life, not social media.
I fully understand the anger and frustration about the housing situation, but I feel it is misled by the same people that created this situation.
If you don’t allow reasonable conversation in the public forum, this stuff grows online. The people making posts like this don’t know the difference between an asylum seeker, a EU migrant and an economic migrant from outside the EU, Why? Because as soon as anybody brings up the subject they’re labelled a racist and shunned, so they go on FB to their echo chamber. This is happening all over the world, and the response has been to bring in draconian speech laws which only makes the problem worse.
Please ignore the social media crap and AI slop. It’s bots and racists not even in Ireland. Yes there are a handful of racist such as the dog kicker in Ireland but their content is magnified by the bots and racists outside Ireland.
As others have said, our election results don’t reflect these eacists in any meaningful way. They got less then 1% in the last election.
“I heard you want your country back? SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
social media is not a true reflection of reality.
I have left facebook and instagram and twitter/x behind.
let’s please look at the real world in 2026.
you are welcome here.
Best thing to do is chat to human beings
AI slop and an AI written slop post.
I’ve never had tiktok, I deleted my Facebook and Instagram – the majority are bots, that’s why I left. It’s not enjoyable. Making everyone angry. I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist. But if you only have online examples maybe it’s an online problem rather than real life.
I used to enjoy SM like 10 years ago when people used to just put up heavily filtered pictures of their dinners.
The people who are supportive of immigration don’t go online boasting about it, or even in person. Don’t consider social media presence and some isolated eejits shouting racial nonsense a good representation of what people in general think.
Anyone who reads this(the screenshot) and doesn’t immediately disregard it after seeing “vassel” and “Eyeland”, shouldn’t be taken seriously.
But the whole problem is that we live in a world where a significant vocal minority believe, and fall for, this fucking shit.
It’s much easier to persuade the casual mind, and there’s far more of those around than people who won’t fall for this. Herein lies the problem.
This kind of stuff just helps the argument of requiring an ID to have the likes of a Facebook account.
If you love the country and you feel like the majority of actual natives don’t want you or further immigrants here in this country then you should leave out of that love for the place you’ve come to