What’s Elon’s X agenda got to do with Ireland?
Taoiseach and Tánaiste hit out at platform for hate speech
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has described Elon Musk’s X social media platform as ‘a sewer’ while Tánaiste Micheál Martin accused the site of allowing ‘hate and bile’ to go unmonitored ‘under the cover of free speech’.
The comments by the country’s two most powerful political leaders come amid growing international concerns about how X, formerly Twitter, has allegedly broken EU laws on hate speech and fake news since the company was taken over by billionaire Elon Musk.
At home, X’s failure to respond to disinformation which went viral prior to the November 23 riots in Dublin also sparked deep unease within Government.
Speaking to reporters in a round table interview this week, Mr Martin said he has ‘real concerns about what has been happening at X’.
The Tánaiste said: ‘I have noticed it… the degree to which X, under the cover of free speech, essentially is allowing, in my view, unacceptable material in terms of hate, bile and attacks.
‘In the aftermath of the rioting in Dublin it was communicated to me by [Media] Minister [Catherine] Martin and others that X was not as responsive to the authorities as the other platforms were. I’ll talk to my Government colleagues in respect of this and it is a serious issue.’
Mr Martin said he would like to get an analysis of X’s agenda and ‘its potential impact on democracy and society’.
But he admitted he has ‘concerns’ over whether or not engaging with X – ‘given the position adopted by its owner’ – would be ‘fruitful’.
And, in a warning shot to Mr Musk, the Taoiseach said: ‘Twitter, as it used to be called, has always been a bit of a sewer as far as social media goes. Despite what other people may say I am actually somebody who believes in free speech but there have to be limitations and standards.
‘I don’t believe that Twitter, or X, implements its own community standards. Other social media platforms do, and I think if you’re not even able to live up to your own standards it doesn’t reflect very well on any organisation.’
Mr Varadkar added: ‘We said very clearly a year or two ago that the era of self-regulation was over. We have laws and they’re European laws. We have an online safety commissioner now, and we have Coimisiún na Meán, and I think things are going to change.’
Mr Varadkar was speaking after comments he made recently about the Government being ‘very white’ and needing to be ‘more diverse’ sparked an extraordinary riposte from Mr Musk, who posted on his platform that the Taoiseach ‘hates the Irish people’.
Responding to Mr Varadkar’s comment, the conservative blogger and Donald Trump supporter, Ian Miles Cheong, said on social media: ‘Ireland is 94.1% white.’
Cheong’s post attracted 20,000 likes, 5,500 retweets and 6,400 responses. The latter included Mr Musk, who wrote: ‘Ironically, the
Irish PM hates the Irish people.’
Sinn Féin TDs David Cullinane and Chris Andrews were among those who defended the Taoiseach in the aftermath of the post.
Mr Musk has seen the fortunes of his social media platform plummet since he bought Twitter for $44bn (€40bn) using a leveraged buyout in 2022. Some of X’s biggest advertisers quit the platform after the owner appeared to endorse an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
In a bizarre interview at the New York Times DealBook summit, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive last month issued a profanity-laden attack on advertisers joining the boycott of X.
‘Don’t advertise,’ Mr Musk said. ‘If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money… go f*** yourself.’
X has also come up against direct competition from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s new Threads platform, which launched in Ireland and other EU countries this week.
Dubbed the ‘Twitter killer’ app when it was launched in July 2023, Threads was immediately available in the US and more than 100 other countries, including the UK, but its debut in the EU lagged due to strict privacy laws.
Meanwhile, X continues its downward spiral, with the number of daily active users shrinking by 13% since Mr Musk took over.
The company has been contacted for comment.
‘Unacceptable hate, bile and attacks’