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The Yes side’s welcome for the foreign advertising ban reveals its fear the No side is gaining ground, writes Eilis O’Hanlon MAY 25 a decision has to be made

The Yes side is filled with fear that the No side is gaining ground. Eilis O’Hanlon,

‘Two foreign-owned companies worth almost three times as much as the whole country have made a decision which could affect the final result of a free referendum. Yet this is being celebrated by people who claim to be progressive...’

THE current row over the fairness or otherwise of online advertising for the Eighth Amendment referendum is an almost textbook example of what sociologists call a “moral panic”.

Something or someone is perceived as a threat to the normal social order. The media depicts that threat in a simplistic and emotive way. Public concern is aroused to a state of heightened paranoia. The authorities then enact new laws or policies to counter this threat, even when it doesn’t actually exist.

This latest row, like previous controversies about Russian interference in the US presidential election, or the continuing claims that misleading promises led to the victory for Brexit in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, follows the phenomenon to a tee.

Something is perceived as a threat to the social order (“The poisonous online campaign to defeat the abortion referendum” — The Irish Times).

The media depicts this in a simplistic way (“Facebook interference a threat to democracy in upcoming Irish abortion vote” — Irish Central).

Public fear is aroused (“Concerns over mystery Facebook ads claiming to offer ‘unbiased facts’ on the Eighth Referendum — thejournal.ie).

The authorities do something to counter the threat (“Taoiseach welcomes move by Google, Facebook on referendum ads” — The Irish Times).

Those who spark off this moral panic are what Stanley Cohen, who first identified the phenomenon, described as “folk devils”. And right now the folk devils are No campaigners — who’ve been painted as Machiavellian geniuses warping the referendum to their own twisted ends, thwarting the efforts of decent, honest repealers, not least in the Government, who are hampered in their own efforts to get the vote Yes message across by their determination to play by the rules, unlike their devious, mendacious opponents.

The beauty of the ban on foreign advertisements — which Google and Facebook announced last week, to the universal approval of the political establishment — is that it can easily be presented as an ideologically neutral move, because it applies equally to both camps.

Insofar as it’s also designed to plug an existing gap whereby foreign funding of elections and other campaigns is expressly forbidden, but digital advertising is not, it could be considered long overdue. It was a loophole ripe for exploitation. That doesn’t mean it isn’t directed primarily at one side.

The fact it was welcomed so enthusiastically by repeal campaigners is itself proof that they know the No campaign has thereby been denied one of the few avenues it had to campaign outside a biased traditional Irish media that is overwhelmingly hostile to pro-life opinion. The move is intended to derail the No campaign just as it was starting to seriously bite, as last weekend’s polls confirmed.

Repeal strategists are in a flap because they’ve suddenly realised that, contrary to the script, they might be losing to a much more effective campaign. Momentum is what matters, and right now that lies with the No camp.

The Yes side does not have enough spare support to survive a significant swing against it in the last weeks of the campaign, as happened in the same-sex marriage referendum.

The No side recognised this weeks ago, and exploited it to its advantage. The Yes side has belatedly woken up to the danger. The commentary as to how much the ban on foreign-funded online advertising will hurt the No campaign is a direct consequence of that rising alarm.

It’s a desperate attempt to find excuses for why one particular argument is gaining traction. There must, repealers have concluded, be some sinister reason. Hence the neurotic over-reaction when a Together For Yes crowdfunding initiative was shut down for 30 minutes on Wednesday when the company hosting the website came under attack by an “unknown Irish-based entity”. Together For Yes immediately put out a press release, insisting that “we are continuing to investigate this extremely serious incident”.

It’s not unthinkable that there might have been some kind of cyber attack on the Together For Yes site, just as posters on both sides have been torn down from lampposts — but it’s still not that big a deal.

The tech giants cannot be blamed for making a decision to ban online advertising originating from outside Ireland.

Facebook is responding to a tidal wave of criticism after recently being exposed for playing fast and loose with users’ personal data. It now wants to show itself to be responsible, even if it does mean acting as a censor in violation of the ideal of a free world wide web.

The company duly presented the move as “part of our efforts to protect the integrity of elections and referendums from undue influence”, as if subjecting users to undue influence by advertisers was not an integral part of the funding model. That’s how Facebook makes money.

Of course, it won’t stop foreign interference in Irish politics. Foreign donations can still flood into the country as long as those in receipt of them promise (or should that be pretend?) that they’re not for direct election or referendum spending. That’s why Sinn Fein is able to raise so much money in the US — by undertaking not to spend it on forbidden activities. But it can still splash plenty of cash on campaigning with resources freed up by being replaced with other sources of funding from abroad. It’s a murky area with plenty of loopholes.

It also won’t avoid the hypocrisy of allowing more subtle forms of foreign interference. Last week’s ban, for example, does not extend to the widespread reporting of the views of international figures, such as Friends actress Courteney Cox, who last week urged Irish voters to repeal the Eighth.

How much would it cost to buy the same amount of advertising that Cox’s views got for free simply by virtue of being reported as “news”?

The Google and Facebook ban could itself be regarded as an example of foreign interference. Google is worth more than $500bn; Facebook has lost $80bn in value since the Cambridge Analytica data scare — but it can easily afford to take the hit since its estimated market worth last year was set at over $400bn.

Ireland in its entirety has a GDP of just over $300bn.

In other words, two foreign-owned companies worth almost three times as much as the whole country have made a decision which, in obstructing one particular side more than another, could affect the final result of a free referendum. Yet this is being celebrated by people who claim to be progressive.

What this promotion of implausibly wealthy corporations as the guardians of democracy confirms is the next stage of the “moral panic”, as identified by sociologists, and that’s the way that these outbursts of irrationality invariably end up benefiting those in power, allowing them to push through measures which would otherwise have little chance of succeeding.

The tools which Facebook and Google are rolling out to clamp down on digital campaigning could easily be used in even more sinister scenarios by governments with no real feel for free thought to clamp down on dissent.

That’s too high a price to pay for the liberalisation of Irish abortion law.

Women can always travel to England for abortions when they want one, and there’s no reason to believe that this right will ever be taken away. It’s other freedoms which are under threat.

It’s not just that Yes campaigners have no clue how to win undecided voters round to their cause — though that’s increasingly obvious. It’s that they’re giving those undecided too many reasons to want to give smug, complacent knowit-alls on the Yes side and in Government a bloody nose.

The big question is what they’re going to do if, despite this knee-jerk move to ban foreign advertising, pro-repealers still lose the vote on May 25 anyway.

We know what happened when these same self-styled forces of reason lost the United States presidential and the UK Brexit votes. They turned on the people. Instead of borrowing in advance the excuses of Hillary Clinton supporters and pro-Remain activists in the UK for why they didn’t win, why not learn the lessons of why they lost in order to avoid a repetition?

That means not treating ordinary voters as ignorant, unenlightened peasants who need the guidance of the high and mighty, rather than being left alone to make big decisions for themselves, because they just might decide they’ve had enough and push back.

And if they do, it’s Irish women who’ll pay the price with, potentially, further decades without access to safe and legal abortion, and that would be a sorry outcome, because there’s definitely an element of a moral panic about the No side’s efforts to portray this as the end of civilisation as we know it too.

All because a small metropolitan elite couldn’t just keep their contempt for the little people under wraps for the few short weeks of this referendum campaign.