Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, has claimed Minister for Justice Helen McEntee made "inaccurate" comments in the Dáil over Garda contact with the company following the Dublin riots.
Speaking in the Dáil, Ms McEntee said An Garda Síochána engaged with X, Meta and TikTok on the day after the riots broke out. She said X had been the only one of the social media giants not to "engage" with gardaí.
Ms McEntee said she had spoken to a detective, from Pearse Street Garda station, who “said very clearly that social media companies, in particularly TikTok and Meta, they were responding, they were engaging with gardaí, and they were taking down these vile posts as they came up".
She added: "X were not. They didn’t engage. They did not fulfil their own community standards. And that is why we are moving to a situation where these companies do not get to self-monitor. That’s why Ciomisiún na Meán has been established, to make sure that these companies are held responsible."
In response, X added a clarification to the video of McEntee's remarks, which read: "This is inaccurate. According to X's own Global Government Affairs team, they have taken down more than 1230 posts as of writing. They did not receive any takedown requests from the Irish govt. until late Nov 27th -- and that was only for a single post..."
Meanwhile, X's 'Global Government Affairs' account wrote: "This is inaccurate. We have proactively taken action on more than 1,230 pieces of content under our rules relating to the riots.
"We met with the Coimisiún na Meán on November 24 to discuss our response. The Gardai did not make any formal requests to us until late Monday 27th November. We responded promptly.
"The only appeal we have received from the Gardai relating to the enforcement of our rules is for a single post.
"We hope the Minister will clarify her remarks."
This is inaccurate. We have proactively taken action on more than 1,230 pieces of content under our rules relating to the riots.
We met with the Coimisiún na Meán on November 24 to discuss our response. The Gardai did not make any formal requests to us until late Monday 27th… https://t.co/nHGMDg45MuAdvertisement— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) December 4, 2023
Dr Dympna O'Sullivan, senior lecturer in computer science and academic lead of the Digital Futures Research Hub at Technological University Dublin, recently spoke to BreakingNews.ie about the need for Government to engage with social media companies to combat disinformation.
She said: "I think the bigger problem is that we haven't really established rules and norms for the digital space in general. Where that has come to the fore is social media and we're seeing what I would call disasters of social media.
"Self regulation does not work, we know that. We've seen the issues around social media tools around toxic content, spreading misinformation without any regulation, they've become really key tools in the culture wars."
Ms McEntee faces a motion of no-confidence over her handling of the Dublin riots this evening.
The motion has been brought forward by Sinn Féin, and will be voted on in the Dáil. However, with the support of Government and Independent TDs, it is unlikely to pass.
