SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM X, formerly Twitter, has responded to claims made by justice minister Helen McEntee that the platform did not engage with gardaí when asked to take down posts around the Dublin riot.
The company says that remarks made by Helen McEntee in the Dáil last week are “inaccurate” and that it has “proactively taken action on more than 1,230 pieces of content under our rules relating to the riots”.
Speaking in the Dáil last week McEntee said a female garda detective had contacted social media companies to remove “vile” posts on their platforms and that all of them but X had engaged.
“[The female garda detective] was actively engaged with TikTok, actively engaged with Meta – so Instagram and Facebook – was actively engaged with Twitter, or X.
“She said very clearly that social media companies – in particular TikTok and Meta – they were responding, they were engaging with gardaí and they were taking down these vile posts as they came up.
“X were not, they didn’t engage. They did not fulfill their own community standards,” the minister said.
The Fine Gael X account later posted a video of McEntee’s contribution to its profile, tagging the company and its billionaire-owner Elon Musk, and said government were to take action “to ensure social media companies are held to account”.
Responding to the party’s tweet, X said it met with the Coimisiún na Meán on Friday 24 November – the day after the riot. The social media company added that Gardaí did not make any formal requests to the platform until late on Monday 27 November.
A Garda spokesperson gave the following statement to The Journal: “During and after the knife attack and the serious public order incident in Dublin city centre on the 23rd November 2023, An Garda Síochána was in contact with social media companies in relation to certain content.”
“Throughout this situation, An Garda Síochána has received significant assistance from Coimisiún na Meán, and An Garda Síochána is continuing to liaise with Coimisiún na Meán on the matter.
“As this is an ongoing investigation, An Garda Síochána has no further comment at this time,” they added.
This is inaccurate. We have proactively taken action on more than 1,230 pieces of content under our rules relating to the riots.
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) December 4, 2023
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/nHGMDg45Mu
X claimed that when it was contacted by Gardaí it 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.”
A spokesperson for the Minister told The Journal today: “Minister McEntee was relaying concerns directly raised with her by frontline Gardaí who were working on the day of the riots.
“The Minister will continue to engage with An Garda Síochána on these matters, and looks forward to directly engaging with X,” he added.
Commenting on the matter in the Dáil today, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Minister McEntee has sought a meeting with X off the back of her meeting with the gardaí.
He said he hopes that X will accept the meeting.
“I will say this to anyone. Most of us are active on social media. Every major platform out there has community standards, and I think we all know which platforms are good at implementing and respecting their own community standards, and which ones are not. I’ll let people draw their own conclusions in that regard,” the Taoiseach said.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s News at One programme, Minister for Enterprise Simon Coveney said, on the night of the riot, social media was being used as a “vehicle” for far-right actors to “whip up division, anger, and ultimately I encouraging people to come in and cause carnage in the center of Dublin City, which is what subsequently happened”.
Coveney said: “We as a government need to reflect now on the role of social media platforms in the context of that kind of hatred and division.”
He said that the use of X by far-right activists and the platform’s owner Elon Musk – who made remarks on the stabbing incident and subsequent riot – at the time was “very unhelpful”.
He said the issue lay in the “extend to which [X] engaged” with authorities after being approached.
Put to him that the disagreement was not about how X engaged, but the claim that they didn’t engage at all, Coveney said: “I don’t have the quote in front of me but I’ve had a number of conversations with Minister McEntee on this issue.
“The question is when Coimisúin na Meán will have the responsibility for the regulation of social media platforms – and of course that regulation is going to get an awful lot more teeth in the early parts of next year [...] - Coimisúin na Meán will actually have the responsibility for regulating many of those social media platforms not only in Ireland, but right across the European Union.”
He added that the commission will have as significant legal powers to be able to fine companies heavily if they don’t take down dangerous or inaccurate material.
Coimisiún na Meán said in a statement on Thursday that when it became aware of the stabbing incident, it “immediately contacted” platforms about “the potential sharing of images and videos of the incident online and the potential use of this incident to incite violence against individuals or groups”.
It said it held meetings with the platforms and the European Commission on Friday to get more information about how they have responded to the riots. More meetings are to take place this week “for more detailed discussions about their response”.
X claims they have since removed over 1,200 posts relating to the riot and were present at the meeting between social media companies, Coimisúin na Meán and the European Commission.
Last week, McEntee said she wanted to meet with the company after the concerns were raised to her over the company’s engagement.
McEntee said: “When [X] did not take down content on Thursday it added to and I think fuelled some of what happened. I would like to engage with them on what they plan to do moving forward.”
She added that the recent establishment of Coimisiún na Meán “is moving towards a society where we don’t have self-regulation with these types of companies”.
In an interview with The Journal in October, Coimisiún na Meán’s executive chairperson, Jeremy Godfrey, said that in the few interactions the group has had with social media companies, all have engaged proactively in the past.
Godfrey said in the few cases so far, everybody concerned has been “on the same side” and there has been good cooperation from the companies to remove harmful content.
Fine Gael MEP Deirdre Clune, and a member of the European Parliament’s Internal Market & Consumer Protection Committee, said at an event on Friday: “I’ve been aware of it since the start of COVID, misinformation, disinformation have started appearing online.
“There’s been a code of conduct in place but also a strong engagement with the Commission on how these platforms manage themselves.”
She added that legislation allows for these companies to be fined up to 6% of their annual turnover if they fail to engage.
Minister Simon Harris said earlier this week that there is a “very serious issue” in relation to the ability to “spread disinformation and undermine democracy” on social media platforms.
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