TAOISEACH: MY FURY AT FACEBOOK’S VIGILANTE MESSAGES
Varadkar condemns social media firm over hateful posts inciting attacks on bank boss
THE Taoiseach has condemned Facebook’s ‘unacceptable’ refusal to remove online death threats in the wake of the Roscommon eviction row.
In his most powerful criticism to date of the social media giant, Leo Varadkar said such firms ‘don’t seem to think that they are in anyway accountable’ for what goes on their platforms.
And he pointed out that any traditional media that circulated such material would be swiftly punished.
Mr Varadkar warned: ‘The fact
that they don’t take down posts that incite hatred and incite violence is just unacceptable in my view.’
Earlier this week, the Irish Daily Mail revealed that a page on the social media website called ‘Anti Eviction Flying Column’ was carrying posts calling for the bailiffs to be shot and ‘fed to the pigs’, as well as threats against the boss of KBC bank.
However, Facebook insisted the page did not violate its terms of service, and refused to remove it, leading to widespread political condemnations.
Last night, despite initially telling the Mail they had reviewed the page and ‘it was found not to be in violation of our policies’, the offensive posts were removed. However the page itself remains active on the social media site.
A Facebook spokesman said last night: ‘The post and comments on the post, to which the Taoiseach is referring, were removed as they were in violation of our rules on what is allowed on Facebook.
‘The page itself does not violate our community standards as we believe that Facebook should be a place where people can engage in lively and critical debate around
‘An incitement to hatred and violence’
the issues that matter to them.’
The Taoiseach had waded into the row yesterday, following Facebook’s initial refusal to address the issue. He said: ‘As far as I am concerned, social media posts like that are incitement of hatred and incitement of violence,’ he said, ‘And if you were a publisher of a newspaper or a broadcaster, you wouldn’t be allowed to promote that kind of stuff and you would be held accountable for it.’
He said social media giants could not control the posts people put up on websites or social networks, although many websites have moderators who check content before it is made public.
Nevertheless, Mr Varadkar did insist that firms like Facebook should act once they are made aware of such material. ‘They can take them down,’ he said.
Posts on the ‘Anti Eviction Flying Column’ Facebook page called for KBC boss Wim Verbraeken to be attacked at his home and for ‘the gun to be brought back into play’. Others called for bailiffs to be ‘shot on site & fed to the pigs’.
Earlier this week, a Facebook spokesman told the Irish Daily Mail that while there was ‘no place for content such as bullying, incitement or glorification of violence on Facebook’, the page in question would not be shut.
‘We believe that Facebook should be a place where people can engage in lively and critical debate around the issues that matter to them. However, if debate tips into bullying, hate speech or credible threats of violence, then we will take action on those comments or individuals,’ the spokesman said. ‘We encourage our community to report anything that worries them, using our reporting tools on every single page, profile and piece of content on Facebook.’
Facebook was embroiled in controversy this year over violent content, advertising during elections and privacy issues.
This led the Oireachtas Communications Committee to declare that the ‘era of self-regulation’ for social media companies is over.
Part of the plans to regulate such companies should involve the appointment of a Digital Safety Commissioner, which Communications Minister Richard Bruton said he will be working on next year, the Taoiseach said.
‘What we need to work out is what is the best and most effective way of changing that, and you know one of the things we are working on is a Digital Safety Commissioner and we could do that in 2019,’ he said.
‘We just would need to be sure that would actually be effective, as we want to do something that is effective.’
The latest controversy led the Oireachtas committee’s chairwoman Hildegarde Naughton TD to accuse Facebook of ‘losing its moral compass’. She said: ‘It is unacceptable that such threats of violence are allowed remain on the Facebook platform.’ The Taoiseach has also broken his silence on video footage that showed the security firm using force to evict the family in question. He was criticised by Sinn Féin for condemning violence by locals following the eviction, but not the actions of those carrying out the eviction.
The family stated that they were disappointed with the Taoiseach’s response. Mr Varadkar had said: ‘I don’t think anyone can say just from that video that they have a full understanding of what happened. But certainly nobody likes to see force being used on anyone unnecessarily. Nobody likes to see evictions happen, particularly in the run-up to Christmas time.’
LEO Varadkar has echoed this newspaper’s call for Facebook to delete a page supporting retaliatory attacks on security personnel guarding properties from which tenants have been evicted.
In the wake of last Sunday’s brutality in Co. Roscommon, the page has been a magnet for hate speech – with calls to violence, even including murder.
As the Taoiseach rightly pointed out, traditional media is held to account for everything it publishes, and we would be charged with sedition or hate speech if we printed such material. Facebook instead allows it proliferate, because the company makes money from page views, and has refused to shut down this group.
Unfortunately, Mr Varadkar also repeated the myth that Facebook cannot control what people say online, when in fact it can – by simply blocking it.
He needs to be reminded that he is the sheriff here, and can force Facebook to fall into step with the same rules and regulations that govern all indigenous media. He must do so now.