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Last November, a few hundred rioters on Parnell Street unwittingly flummoxed years of EU policy making and sent a shiver down the spine of Silicon Valley.
As vehicles were set ablaze on O’Connell Street and an ill-prepared Public Order Unit assembled for battle over WhatsApp, a frantic call was made by online regulator Coimisiún na Meán to a top EU Commission official to invoke emergency legislation for social media censorship.
The only problem was that at the time the anonymous Eurocrat in question was sitting down for dinner and unable to pick up the phone until more of O’Connell Street and surrounding areas went up in flames.
Despite the pretensions of both Dublin and the EU in wanting to regulate digital platforms, simple human error meant that the recently launched Digital Services Act (DSA), tailormade to grant Brussels and national governments executive powers to reign in large platforms, effectively failed on its first outing.
Perhaps in a sign about how little the European Commission knew about on-the-ground events or Ireland in general, EU officials in the subsequent days tried to fob off the comedy of errors that led to the botched rollout of the DSA by blaming a lack of “Gaelic speaking moderators.”
Rushed through the European Parliament as well as the Oireachtas, the DSA has a multifaceted role, placing hefty fines on mega platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and TikTok should they not comply with the orders of the Commission or member states in the area of hate speech enforcement in particular.
Already the DSA is being weaponised against the Chinese-owned TikTok on child safety grounds as well as being turned on Elon Musk for his libertarian approach to free speech on the recently rebranded X platform.
There is a saying in Brussels that America innovates, China builds, but the EU regulates, with the DSA seen as replicating the regulatory success of GDPR in forcing U.S. multinationals to bend the knee on European data protection laws just this time with content moderation.
Akin to their attempts to regulate AI, Eurocrats envision a world where the DSA alters the balance of power against American Big Tech firms, granting the EU more global relevance in a world where the Continent at large is being left in the technological dust.
For free speech advocates, the DSA means the EU is looking to export its onerous hate speech laws globally.
Courtesy of the working location of most American social media platforms in the Dublin Docklands, the Irish government is adamant in making Coimisiún na Meán the primary enforcer of the DSA EU-wide, similar to the oversized role played by the Irish Data Protection Commission in regulating the flow of data internationally.
Recent Oireachtas committee hearings have seen Irish politicians practically salivate at the prospect of getting their hands on the powers granted to them by the DSA, specifically in relation to clamping down on supposed anti-migrant hate speech. During proceedings at the Oireachtas this writer noticed how genuinely frightened most speakers from Coimisiún na Meán looked at the prospect of effectively regulating online speech for most of Europe as they complained about staffing issues.
Outside of some fears verbalised by Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly and others in committee about the potential for pro-Palestinian content to be censored, very few were concerns flagged about the DSA and its impact on Ireland’s business relationship with tech firms the state is financially dependent on.
A coterie of Irish NGOs are also jockeying for enhanced powers as the content moderators as they pine for the role of becoming ‘trusted flaggers’ in conjunction with platforms.
In essence, these NGOs envision an arrangement where they get not just a direct line but the regulatory whip hand over platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, not just for Ireland but internationally as the ongoing populist backlash intensifies globally.
The transparency and reporting features are a godsend for erstwhile left-wing Irish NGOs as one former student union leader, Síona Cahill takes up a lead role leading Coimisiún na Meán’s communications team.
Whether NGOs such as the Hope not Hate Collective or the ICCL manage to colonise the reporting features for the DSA in Dublin will dictate the course of politics not just in Ireland but internationally as right-wing populism comes into vogue across Europe.
To comprehend the power the DSA gives Coimisiún na Meán, and the NGOs now clustered around, imagine future scenarios where despite domestic regulators EU governments will likely have to approach the Coimisiún in Dublin for content removal during elections or national emergencies.
Considering this and the potential of the DSA to be turned against anti-direct provision protests, as well as implicit threats by Taoiseach Harris to use the DSA against Twitter in Europe, I was interested about the nuts and bolts of how enforcement would operate in emergency circumstances, as was seen last November on Parnell Street.
Rather curiously, despite being the primary department for DSA enforcement, the Department of Tourism and Media seemed unable to help and directed me to Coimisiún na Meán as they seemed uncertain about the mechanics of DSA enforcement.
Similarly, a very kind Garda press office appeared not to have any idea what the DSA was or that it could be used in emergency situations such as riots and were unable to answer my questions.
Both Coimisiún na Meán and the European Commission provided similar answers as to how the DSA could be implemented should a situation arise akin to another Parnell Street riot, referring me to procedures decided by Brussels as part of the “Incident and Threat Response Framework.”
According to one Commission official, the protocols establish a “three-way discussion between Irish authorities, the Commission, and platforms” whenever an emergency situation arises, with Coimisiún na Meán conducting liaisons with platforms and An Garda Sochána following the events of November 23rd.
Coimisiún na Meán and its Chairman, Jeremy Godfrey, will additionally report monthly to the European Board for Digital Services (EBDS) in Brussels regularly, where French Commissioner Thiery Bretton continues his assault against American platforms.
As foreshadowed by battles between Americans and the EU over GDPR as well as questions of tax avoidance by multinationals, Ireland is carving itself into a niche and very dangerous position when it comes to pro-censorship policies courtesy of the DSA and similar actions.
From ideologically motivated NGOs attempting to garner enhanced powers internationally to the potential of free expression being suppressed when it comes to citizens airing their grievances over the state’s international protection policies, the DSA is arguably one of the defining piece of legislation of this decade up there with the recently passed Migration Pact.
Only minutes away from refugee tents newly encamped along the Grand Canal, Coimisin na Meán’s offices on the Shelbourne Road will play host to an international power struggle that pits the EU against Silicon Valley, free speech against censorship, and which will potentially influence electoral outcomes around Europe.
Dublin marketed itself as Europe’s leading tech hub in the 2010s but it is now evolving into the less innovative role of becoming the censorship capital of the world.
While Simon Harris is jeering today about turning the knife on Musk, the Irish government is embarking on a tightrope routine when it comes to managing its relationship not just with its own citizenry but also between Brussels and Silicon Valley with any conflict destined to blow up chunks of our economy into the Liffey.
Thomas O’Reilly is a Brussels-based journalist and researcher specialising in EU institutional affairs and populist politics.
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