The Executive Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), Liam Herrick, has called Elon Musk a “twisted narcissist” whose political ideas “are as hateful as they are stupid.” Herrick added “not long to go before he burns this place [Twitter] to the ground…”
Musk is a twisted narcissist, whose political ideas are as hateful as they are stupid. Not long to go now before he burns this place to the ground… https://t.co/ogz57cWqE8
— Liam Herrick (@liamherrick) July 4, 2023
Herrick made his comments in response to an article from Jezebel, the online feminist magazine, which claimed that Musk had ‘suggested’ people without children should “lose the right to vote.” Jezebel based that claim on Musk responding with “Yup” to a third-party tweet that read “Democracy is probably unworkable long term without limiting suffrage to parents.”
Herrick’s claim that Musk’s political ideas are hateful are of interest as, whilst the ICCL publicly states that it has, since its inception in 1976, “defended the right to freedom of expression,” the group has long called upon the Government to criminalise hate speech.
This campaigning has been conducted both under the name of the ICCL directly and through the Coalition Against Hate Crime, a group which is chaired by the ICCL and based out of the ICCL’s offices.
Even though the ICCL has publicly raised concerns about certain provisions of the Government’s upcoming Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill the Coalition Against Hate Crime recently wrote to TDs to inform them that the Coalition “remains united” in their “call for its passage.” The coalition urged parliamentarians to support the bill. The Coalition also claimed that “it is clear that some politicians are trying to use the passage of this legislation to import toxic “culture war” type discussion into Irish political discourse,” although the group did not detail any examples of such behaviour.
Herrick has previously been rather dismissive of Musk’s views on free speech, saying that Musk’s “free speech posturing should be treated with a high degree of scepticism” and that Musk “says some fairly stupid things about politics and free speech.” In April of this year Musk called the bill a “massive attack on freedom of speech.” Musk has previously said that “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy. It is a fundamental defence against autocracy & statism, which is why we must fight so hard to preserve it.”
Given Herrick’s description of Musk’s views as hateful, and given the ICCL’s support for hate speech laws, we asked Herrick if he believed Musk’s statements should be punishable by law. We had not received a response by the time of publication; this article will be updated should we receive a relevant response.
Gript has previously reported that the ICCL, despite repeatedly claiming that it is “completely independent of government and big business,” is largely funded by public money and a small number of foreign institutional donors, with less than 5% of the ICCL’s funding in 2020 coming from membership fees and individual donors.