Senator Sharon Keogan has told the Seanad that she is “outraged” at the “steady interference” of the European Union in democratic elections, “including our own.”
The Independent Senator was referring to a recent report on communications between big tech and the European Commission subpoenaed by the US Congress. She said that the facts are clearly documented in the report, which showed that regulators with Coimisiún na Meán worked with the EU and ‘biased fact-checkers’ in the period before Ireland’s 2024 and 2025 general election and presidential election.
They did so in order to disadvantage conservative or populist political parties, according to the report from the judiciary committee of the US Congress.
The report, published earlier this month, claimed that popular social media platforms including Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and search engines such as Google were asked to co-operate with “left-wing” NGOs on content moderation during key elections in Europe.
It further said that “most major technology platforms have their European headquarters in Dublin, making the outcome of Irish elections particularly important to the European Commission’s tech agenda,” adding “For the same reason, Ireland’s media regulator, the Coimisiún na Meán, is one of the most powerful in the world.”
Keogan said she was not concerned or irritated, but outraged by the findings of the report.
“Ahead of the 2023 election in Slovakia, TikTok, under EU pressure, censored statements such as “There are only two genders” and “We need to stop the sexualization of young people”. These are mainstream political positions yet the EU machinery branded them hate speech. That is ideological policing. The patterns repeat. In Poland, regulators sought the removal of a post stating that electric cars are neither ecological nor economical, which is a simple policy view,” she said.
“Germany labelled calls to deport criminal offenders as incitement to hatred and pushed for a deletion. This is not moderation. It is the silencing of one side of a political debate,” added Senator Keogan.
She added that the Digital Services Act guidelines “further demand that platforms alter algorithms, suppress disinformation and limit generative AI political content during election periods, rules that applied here not once but twice in 2024 and 2025 for our candidates and voters.”
“Who decides what counts as harmful for Irish people to hear? asked the Senator. “It is not the Irish electorate and it is not this Oireachtas. It is unelected officials in Brussels who have shown that they are more than willing to censor speech that is subjectively deemed unacceptable, whether it is on gender, migration, energy or public safety.
“Democracy cannot function when one side of the debate is muzzled. Ireland’s elections belong to the Irish people, not the EU regulators, not the ideologically aligned NGOs and not the Commission bureaucrats, who believe they can curate political speech for an entire Continent.”
The report, released under the title of “The Foreign Censorship Threat, Part II: Europe’s decade-long campaign to censor the global internet and how it harms American speech in the United States,” claims that the US Panel has previously shown that European regulators classify conventional political discourse on immigration and other sensitive topics as “illegal hate speech.”
It says that TikTok reported to the European Commission that it censored over 45,000 pieces of alleged “misinformation,” including clear political speech on topics including “migration, climate change, security and defence and LGBTQ rights,” ahead of the 2024 EU elections.
Further, the document claims that during the 2023 Slovak election, “Tiktok censored a number of statements as “hate speech” while facing “European censorship pressure.” These included assertions such as “there are only two genders,” “children cannot be trans,” “we need to stop the sexualisation of young people / children,” and “targeted misgendering.”
The report goes on to claim that the EU Commission and Commisiún na Méan, Ireland’s media regulator, engaged with platforms ahead of Ireland’s 2024 parliamentary elections and 2025 presidential election – with social media platforms asked to co-operate with “left-wing NGOs and biased fact-checkers”.
Similarly, ahead of the 2025 Irish presidential election, the Irish media regulator hosted a “Digital Services Act Election Roundtable” with the European Commission and platforms, the report says.
“During the meeting, the European Commission warned platforms that the DSA Election Guidelines required “measures to be taken” ahead of the election, including “reinforcing internal processes” regarding content moderation. During the roundtable portion of the event, regulators asked platforms specifically “what measures [they had] put in place.”
Meta responded that it had updated its “election risk assessment” and “mitigations,” meaning that it put in place additional censorship steps—though it did not specify exactly what steps those were. Google emphasized its use of AI tools to detect misinformation, while Microsoft stated that it removed misinformation that violated its policies and “deranked” (i.e., reduce the content’s visibility) it if the content did not violate its policies,” it added.