Twitter faces criticism over racism stance

TWITTER yesterday defended its handling of racist tweets aimed at a mixedrace couple who starred in a Lidl campaign, blaming a ‘wider societal issue’.

Karen White, Twitter’s European director of public policy, spoke before the Oireachtas Justice Committee, which also heard a Facebook executive accept the company had failed to censor abuse targeting Quinn Industrial Holdings directors.

But campaigners criticised the comments, and claimed social media companies were shirking their responsibility.

Of the cyber abuse that caused Fiona Ryan and Jonathan Mathis – a mixed-race Meath couple who appeared in a Lidl ad – to move countries, Ms White said: ‘It’s abhorrent and unacceptable. But I want to reassure the committee that we have very robust policies in place in Twitter around hateful behaviour and hateful conduct.’

Ms White claimed ‘simply removing the content from a service is not in all instances going to change the intolerance’. But Shane O’Curry, director of the European Network Against Racism Ireland, yesterday said: ‘Twitter is a part of society so to claim that the problem is a societal one is an astonishing defence.

‘I think [Ms Ryan and Mr Mathis] would be disappointed with the comments made today.’

Mr O’Curry called on Twitter to remove the ‘troll’ account which targeted Ms Ryan and Mr Mathis.

Executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter attended the meeting to discuss how they could better regulate content. A Facebook chief admitted the company had failed to censor abuse aimed at Quinn Industrial Holdings directors in the leadup to the attack on QIH’s Kevin Lunney. Dualta Ó Broin, head of policy at Facebook, accepted moderators had failed to ‘take the wider context’ of abuse into account.