LONDON, United Kingdom - Harrowing footage of a Belfast knife attack has been seized upon by far-right accounts in Britain and abroad, helping to fuel violent overnight protests which authorities feared could re-ignite later Wednesday.

The 54-second clip, filmed by an as-yet unidentified onlooker, was posted on X late Monday by far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known by his self-adopted moniker Tommy Robinson.

It appeared on his account around an hour after police said a man in his 40s had been seriously injured in a stabbing on a north Belfast street. The victim has since been named as Stephen Ogilvie.

Yaxley-Lennon's post was swiftly shared online and generated a flurry of responses, including a barrage of xenophobic comments and racist memes.

X owner Elon Musk - who has more than 240 million followers on his platform - was among those to amplify far-right reaction to the incident.

As the attack footage ricocheted across X, particularly on UK-based anti-immigration accounts, incendiary posts with demands such as that all migrants must leave Britain emerged online.

Within hours, the video had also spread to Facebook and was notably shared on a page in the Republic of Ireland which called for all Muslims to be "ejected".

Another Northern Ireland-based account repeatedly urged people to join mass protests.

Meanwhile some Facebook users posted an AI-generated image of African migrants on a small boat being hit by a man wielding a hurling stick.

That came after a local man intervened in the Belfast stabbing by beating off the attacker with a hurling stick, in an act of bravery widely hailed as saving Ogilvie's life.

Watchdog warning

Hadi Alodid, 30, a refugee originally from Sudan, appeared at Belfast Magistrates' Court Wednesday to face attempted murder and other charges related to the attack.

Beyond the UK, the attack has been the subject of misinformation from a US-based account which falsely suggested Ogilvie was beheaded.

Meanwhile in Europe, Dutch far-right activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek - a longtime Yaxley-Lennon ally - compared the Belfast footage to "genocidal violence".

Britain's media regulator Ofcom on Wednesday urged platforms to limit the spread of posts inciting violence following the unrest that subsequently erupted in Belfast late Tuesday.

Anti-migrant Facebook pages openly celebrated footage of masked rioters torching homes, sparking hundreds of enthusiastic comments.

Some users added upbeat soundtracks to videos of burning houses and mocked fleeing ethnic minority residents.

The events were also reported by Turning Point UK, the British chapter of the conservative activist group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, in a series of anti-migrant posts.

The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), a Belfast-based human rights group, warned in a report last year that social media was fanning the flames for riots and race-related violence in Northern Ireland.

The UK province with a troubled history of sectarian violence saw racially-motivated riots in 2024 and last year.