Aidan O’Brien of EDMO Ireland appeared as a panellist for the webinar “Who Sets the Rules Online? Democracy, Regulation and Global Power”. The panel was facilitated by the International Coalition Network Against Hate (INACH), in a discussion that ranged from platform governance to the effectiveness of user-driven moderation.
The researcher was joined by fellow panellists Zenith Khan (Centre for the Analysis of Organisation Hate) and Aishik Saha (University of Athens) for a conversation that examined the efficacy of “community notes” interventions in challenging disinformation and hate speech during emergent crises. The panel also assessed the impact of the Digital Services Act (DSA) on platform regulatory governance as the regulation completed its first year in force.
The webinar featured a detailed presentation from Khan on how powerful actors like Elon Musk can weaponise online narratives. Her research demonstrated how platform ownership, algorithmic visibility, and agenda‑setting ability can combine to make certain racialised interpretations disproportionately visible and politically useful.
A key takeaway from the discussion was the need for researchers and civil society to demand systemic transparency and build the institutional capacity to act more quickly on these social media issues.
