Solid, grounded journalism is the last line of defence against AI and fake news
THIS year, we brought you more of the award-winning journalism you expect from the Irish Mail On Sunday. We have focused, as always, on holding power to account and speaking truth to power.
In a challenging media environment, the world of disinformation has proved to have real-world consequences, not least in fomenting riots on a scale previously unseen in our capital city.
Now, more than ever, good, solid, well-sourced public interest journalism might be the last line of defence against a future landscape in which artificial intelligence can make the fake look real, feeding into toxic social media interactions that amplify lies instead of challenging them. There are multiple dangers in a world in which rumour becomes fact, for individuals as well as for society.
This year, the Media Commission has been set up, which we welcome. It is seeking to define what online harm is and is trying to intervene with social media giants to ensure that they take seriously their responsibilities to prevent harmful content appearing on their platforms, and eliminate it before it can be widely spread. This is to be welcomed, but more needs to be done. The responsibilities that so-called legacy media outlets have to our readers and to those we write about must also be applied to the tech firms.
Separately, long-promised change to the defamation law is slowly making its way through the Oireachtas. This newspaper apologises to no one for its staunch belief that this Act may be one of the most important laws to pass next year.
We have seen a rise in strategic litigation against public participation and this paper has been the subject of numerous legal threats that prevent us, sometimes, from being able to publish the full, unvarnished truth. While we are happy to be regulated, and we do not seek to be allowed to damage someone’s good name, we believe that newspapers have proven that they can self-regulate with the Press Ombudsman, and can be trusted to take on board lessons from any case that sets legal precedent.
This is why we believe that a ‘serious harm’ test needs to be introduced into legislation, and why we would urge that juries be eliminated from consideration of defamation trials. This would reduce the time and cost of such trials and help to make our choice to fight a case easier in an ever-more challenging economic media landscape.
We are at a crossroads in what artificial intelligence can produce. This can be positive – like with an iPad app that can turn what motor neurone disease patient Charlie Bird types into words spoken in his voice – but the technology can also be used to create deep fakes that put words into people’s mouths that they never spoke.
On this, the last day of the year, we pledge to exercise the due diligence that has always marked our journalism, and we look forward to continuing to serve our readers with the hardhitting and entertaining news, features and sports coverage that you have come to trust. Above all, we will not tire in our efforts to hold the political establishment accountable.
We thank you for sharing the last year with us, and we ask you to come back in 2024, when we go on another trip around the sun. We wish you all a happy, healthy and fruitful New Year.