EDMO Ireland’s Aidan O’Brien has drawn attention to the underlying “disinformation economy” of digital platforms. Meanwhile, the Irish Independent reports that the Gardaí are trying to remove disinformation about the organisation’s response to the fuel protest.
Europe’s Digital Service Act (DSA) provides for the removal of illegal content. Regarding harmful content including disinformation, the DSA aims to address underlying structures that incentivise or enable harm rather than individual pieces of content.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, O’Brien explained that a network of right-wing social media influencers was already in place to exploit the fuel protests:
“When the protests erupted, Irish right-wing social media influencers went into overdrive posting video content. Many of these influencers benefit from features introduced on the platforms, like algorithm promotion, and have monetised their accounts”
Moreover, Ireland is now a major focus of attention for the international hard-right as evidenced by the fact that North American influencers Ezra Levant and Kevin Posobiec travelled to Ireland to film content about the protest.
While there is much debate about the meaning of the protests and their rights and wrongs, the digital dimension highlights the importance of media monitoring to understand what topics and figures are gaining attention with different groups of people.
In its policy work, EDMO Ireland advocates for a transparent and methodological rigorous system of data collection and publication that would provide basic information about the Irish online media world.
