Politicians and Jamie Bryson react as Loyalists Against Democracy (LAD) vanishes from cyberspace

The Twitter account (@ladfleg) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/BELFASTLAD/) are both down as of time of writing.

The Twitter account page reads: “This account doesn’t exist. Try searching for another.”

And the Facebook one reads: “Sorry, this content isn’t available right now. The link you followed may have expired, or the page may only be visible to an audience you’re not in.”

The accounts were set up to mock loyalists during the 2012 flag protests, following the removal of the permanent union flag from Belfast City Hall.

The reason for the account removals is not clear.

But a screenshot from a Twitter account in the name of John-Paul Whearty, a founder behind the LAD brand, reads as follows:
“I get it, people don’t like me. I’m ok with that, sometimes I don’t like me either, if LADFLEG upset or annoyed you I’m sorry.

“I’m sick of taking all the flak for what was a group effort.”

The message added that he was “exploring how to have the accounts removed”.

The message was timestamped 10.41pm on Sunday.

Mr Wheraty is a Dundalk native aged in his early 40s.

His Facebook account describes him as a “former LADmin” – indicating he is no longer involved in LAD.

And on Wednesday evening, Mr Whearty told the News Letter he has had nothing to do with LAD for the last four years – making it a mystery who has taken the site down.

When it comes to claims that LAD aided in harassing people online, he said “there is an innate flaw in the character in this island, that we harass each other”.

He also said Twitter in general has become a “sectarian sewer”.

Whilst initially set up to deride flag protestors (with its tagline reading at one stage: ‘They say that democracy has taken are fleg, well lets say no to democracy and yes to are fleg’), LAD soon spread its content beyond that.

However some contend that the LAD brand remained particularly hostile to Protestant/unionist/loyalist points of view.

Danny Donnelly, Alliance Party councillor for the Larne Lough area of Mid and East Antrim, wrote on Twitter this morning: “Yo LADFLEG - so long and thanks for all the laughs!

“You were a champion of progressive values in NI and the scourge of many a sectarian bigot and hypocritical politician!... You’ll be missed so you will!”

He added: “I have noting to do with LAD and I have no idea who LAD were (apart from JP) but I’ve been accused of being involved and even outed in the early days! It was a great account - if you were involved - well done!”

Other people challenged him on Twitter over some of the content of the site.

Emma Little-Pengelly, special adviser to Arlene Foster and erstwhile DUP MP, responded to a post about the shutdown by saying that the LAD social media pages had acted as an online “toxic sewer”.

She said that – because of its large following – every time she was mentioned on the accounts it would generate a wave of negative comments from social media users.

She suggested social media users should “go harass actual terrorists” instead.

Meanwhile Dale Pankhurst, a Belfast DUP councillor, said: “Good to see it consigned to the social media dustbin.”

Jamie Bryson, loyalist blogger and frquent target of criticism from LAD, said this morning that for the last eight years the site had “derided” and “mocked” loyalists.

He said the criticism of himself was “water off a duck’s back”.

But he added: “I don’t think if there was a website set up to target nationalists, or Muslims, or the Polish community, that it’d be welcomed [with] cheer-leading in the same way.”

He said if young loyalists did so much as get their spelling wrong in an online post, they would be “made out as fools” by LAD, with “literally thousands of people commenting on it... and just really charicaturing the whole unionist and loyalist community as basically idiotic thugs”.

It was put to Mr Bryson that some LAD supporters feel he may not have helped that narritive himself in the past (for example, when he said in a 2013 blog post that if the UK government had been tougher in the Troubles “then there would never have been a need for the UVF, UDA or any loyalist organisation”).

Mr Bryson said there were two points to make in response.

Firstly, he said: “I’ve always been clear in my support for the law”.

Secondly, he said: “I put myself in the public domain, I put my head up there, people want to have a crack at me, I’m a public figure to a certain extent – that’s fine, there’s no problem with that.

“But this was targeted often against people who are not public figures, who didn’t put themselves up as spokespersons.

“It’s those people this had the most significant impact on.

“What about the people who were just ordinary people, did not want to be plastered all over the place?”

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