Attempts by the Irish state to introduce hate speech legislation were compared to authoritarian crackdowns in Brazil by journalist and author of the “Twitter files” Michael Shellenberger during a seminar at the European Parliament in Brussels Wednesday.
Speaking at an event sponsored by the conservative ECR parliamentary group, Shellenberger, an American environmental journalist who came to global prominence in 2022 for publishing the media-dubbed “Twitter files” exposing U.S. state-supported censorship of the online platform, drew comparisons between Helen McEntee’s hate speech proposals and the dystopian TV series “Black Mirror.”
Describing how it was “no coincidence” that Ireland was selected for the rollout of such laws Shellenberger raised the potential of such legislation being weaponised to seize the devices of non-compliant tech workers for non-compliance when answering questions from MEPs.
One of the most contentious pieces of the last Oireachtas McEntee and her Department were forced to strip away most speech-related elements in an updated text to the 2022 Criminal Justice which originally called for the imprisonment of up to five years for those caught committing hate speech offenses.
Ireland, specifically Coimisiún na Meán is destined to become one of the primary enforces of EU censorship edicts courtesy of the recently enacted Digital Services Act (DSA) which grants European authorities the power to fine platforms for non-compliance on content removal.
Throughout Tuesday’s seminar at the European Parliament, both Shellenberger and MEPs raised the possibility of the DSA enforcement being compromised by ideologically motivated trusted flaggers with Ireland’s own regulatory agencies already close with prominent left-leaning NGO figures.
Not the first time McEntee’s hate speech push was raised at an EU level in November Ireland’s nominee for the next EU Commission Michael McGrath was questioned on his commitment to free speech by Spanish MEP Jorge Martín Frías with many Eurocrats sceptical about Dublin’s role enforcing the DSA due to Ireland’s fiscal ties to U.S. multinationals.
A fresh challenge for Coimisiún na Meán and Irish tech regulators may be shortly on the horizon as the EU looks to set to get involved in censoring TikTok for the impending second rounds of the Romanian presidential election following a shock surge for right-wing nationalist Călin Georgesc.
Despite the pretensions of Irish regulators last November’s rioting in Dublin exposed major regulatory holes in both Ireland and EU content censorship protocols with Irish officials infamously unable to call European regulators while they were at dinner as Dublin burned according to RTÉ.