More proof that we must police the web
LABOUR senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin is being sued by Paddy Jackson for a tweet he sent after the verdict in the Belfast rape trial was announced. A member of the jury is being investigated for posts in an online comment forum, and two people have been quizzed for allegedly naming the complainant on ‘social’ media, even though her anonymity is guaranteed under law.
What this illustrates, yet again, is that the internet is the Wild West, a place where the rule of law is non-existent. Regular readers of this newspaper know that we have, for years, been warning of the dangers posed by the internet: while it has innumerable benefits, it is also hardly the unpolluted Shangri-La of learning, knowledge and joy the tech companies would have us believe. Nor is it an exclusively positive force that enriches and enhances the lives of everyone who uses it.
While we have focused most on the effect of unsupervised internet access on children, for adults too there is a damaging, dangerous, harmful, corrosive and toxic side to the worldwide web.
Let us not forget that the appalling messages posted by the rugby stars and their friends were written on an online messaging site, where people seem emboldened to say things they would be horrified to have aired in public. And many believe their behaviours were fulled by the tide of hardcore pornography which is available to anyone – including children of any age, usually on smartphones and tablets.
The internet operates totally above the law, with the tech giants appearing more powerful than states or governments.
When we in this newspaper report a story, or pass comment on the issues of the day, we are bound by the laws of contempt and defamation. We are subject to oversight by the Press Council of Ireland, which lays down the code of conduct by which we are bound. We print millions of words a week and, inevitably, mistakes will sometimes occur: but when they do, there are robust avenues of redress for those who feel they have been misrepresented or maligned.
But those who post online appear not to understand that when they comment or tweet, they might just as well stand in front of the hundreds of microphones and television cameras outside Laganside Court to share their views. Instead they believe they can say anything they like with impunity.
By claiming to be platform providers and not publishers, the tech companies show as much contempt for responsibility as they do towards paying their taxes: and they can do this because governments all over the world are terrified to take on these behemoths and subject them laws and regulations like traditional media.
Other politicians look at the role of social media in electing U.S. President Donald Trump and see a platform that offers them enormous power: but they are riding a tiger, and are deluded if they believe they can control it.
Our public representatives have failed abysmally to look out for the public. It is time they dispensed with the lily-livered, hand-wringing excuse that the horse has bolted and that nothing can be done about it. Even this week’s Oireachtas Committee report on child safety online, while wellintentioned, was in practical terms about as useful as a previous government’s policy of handing out iodine tablets to help us survive a nuclear holocaust.
Our legislators need to wake up to the real perils of the unregulated internet. They need to stop averting their gaze and start recognising the threat it poses to politics, the justice system, public discourse, child safety, mental health, and normal social interaction.
They must stop being afraid of the perception they are uncool, and realise instead that we need rules, laws and decency in the online world – just as in the real one.