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  • Espiritdescali@futurology.todayOPMtoFuturology@futurology.today•Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris declares regulatory war on social media over online hatred and racismEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    The Sunday Independent understands the Taoiseach wrote to ministers this weekend insisting social media can no longer be a “hiding place for bullies” or people with “sinister motives” who threaten and incite violence

    Mr Harris is especially concerned about the slow response times from some social media companies when they are alerted to malicious material on their platforms.

    “I am most concerned about families who flag a post on a school night because of an emerging bullying problem and receive no response before content is reshared and enormous damage is done,” he said.

    The Taoiseach noted that while social media companies have increased their efforts to tackle harmful content it is also clear there is “too much violent, untrue, hate-filled and racist” material being used to incite violence.

    “It would not be tolerated from any of our newspapers or broadcasters so it cannot continue to be tolerated from multi-billion euro social media companies,” he added.

    Mr Harris’s intervention comes in a week when one man was arrested as part of an investigation into a bomb threat on his home and a separate investigation was launched into a death threat made against Mr Harris’s family via Instagram.

    Social media companies, like X and Facebook, have been blamed for fanning the flames of violent protests in Ireland and the UK in recent weeks.

    Last week, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said the “appalling” violence in the North and across Britain on “mindless, ill-informed stuff” was facilitated by social media platforms, stating Elon Musk’s X is particularly problematic.

    Mr Martin said he was “very concerned” about what was happening in Britain and Belfast and the level of violence involved, saying governments have to tackle social media giants, only some of whom are cooperating with nations’ leaders.

    ‘I think Elon Musk and I think X is problematic; they have a totally different approach in this,” he said.

    In his letter to ministers this weekend, Mr Harris said the key aims of his first online safety summit in the coming weeks will be to identify how to better protect children from social media, tackle the spread of misinformation and ensure laws are enforced to ensure online crime is punished.

    The Taoiseach said Coimisiún na Meán’s soon-to-be-published Online Safety Code will be “at the vanguard of Ireland and the EU’s attempt to harness the benefits of social media whilst also protecting citizens from harmful content.

    “The code of the independent regulator aims to do this to a much higher level than has been seen anywhere else before.

    "Put simply, self-regulation from social media companies has failed, a new era is about to begin,” he said.

    New figures show Coimisiún na Mean is actively investigating over 116 complaints over alleged illegal content across media platforms.

    The powerful regulator is responsible for ensuring social media giants deal with illegal content on their platforms properly - such as credible violent threats, cyberbullying and attempts to stir up hatred against a specific group of people.

    Coimisíun na Meán was set up last year by the Government to hold social media companies to account over not taking illegal content seriously.

    Users are able to make complaints to the regulator if they suspect content illegal under EU legislation is not being dealt with appropriately on the platforms.

    The commission has received nearly 300 queries at its call centre concerning suspected illegal content on social media sites, with 130 complaints which have been escalated further up the chain.

    These have included 46 passed on to its user complaints team and 84 received through the European Commission’s AGORA platform, which allows member state digital services co-ordinators to share information on the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

    Of the escalated complaints, 116 are “open” which mean they have been accepted as valid or are waiting for a decision. Fourteen have been rejected as not valid or incomplete.

    The body has not fined anybody under the DSA, but it has the powers to not just fine but prosecute bosses of social media giants personally.

    “The era of self-regulation of these companies is well and truly over,” Mr Harris said last week.

    “This will be the year in which there will be binding codes, financial sanctions and personal liabilities on social media companies — and that day can’t come quickly enough.”

    “If anybody in any social media company is dining out on or thinking that somehow or other Ireland will not be robust in relation to this, they’re about to find out how extraordinarily wrong they just are.”

    The regulator declined to comment on how many complaints were from politicians.

    “The role of Coimisiún na Meán as Ireland’s digital services co-ordinator is to supervise how online platforms comply with their obligations under the DSA at a systemic level,” said a spokesperson.

    “These obligations include acting on reports of illegal content and ensuring that platforms diligently enforce their own rules about what they do or not allow on their services.”

    The regulator defines illegal content as: credible violent threats; cyberbullying; threatening or grossly offensive content; threatening, abusive or insulting and likely to stir up hatred against a group of people based on their race, nationality, etc; unsolicited nude images which cause distress; offensive sexual content; intimate images shared without consent; encouragement or information that would help with suicide; child abuse material; encouragement or threat of terrorist activity.

    Separately, the Sunday Independent understands the PSNI is co-operating in information sharing with An Garda Síochána about the presence of people from the south at the violent scenes in Belfast last weekend.

    The PSNI has more robust laws than gardaí in terms of its oversight and monitoring powers at riots, primarily related to video footage.

    Security sources say they expect this will be “helpful” as part of its investigations into member of the far-right suspected of involvement in criminality on both sides of the border.

    It has emerged that Irish far-right activists who travelled to Belfast last weekend for an anti-immigration protest were hosted by a loyalist who was arrested in connection with the murders of five Catholics in a sectarian attack.

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